New Tendencies in the Eurocentric Left’s Denial of Imperialist Theory

Since the outbreak of the First World War and the bankruptcy of the Second International (during which nearly all European social democratic parties joined the imperialist war on the side of their respective nation-states), the Left’s differences on the question of imperialism have never reached such a serious degree, which is a sign of the ever-deepening structural crisis of contemporary capitalism. Although Eurocentrists within the Western Marxist camp have long attempted in various ways to weaken the theory of imperialism, Lenin’s classic work *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism* has remained central to all discussions of imperialism for over a century. This is not only because it can accurately explain the two world wars, but also because it provides an important perspective for understanding the post-World War II global order. Moreover, Lenin’s entire analysis is not isolated; it has been supplemented and developed under new historical conditions through different theoretical frameworks such as dependency theory, unequal exchange theory, world-systems theory, and global value chain analysis. Thus, the Marxist theory of imperialism has maintained its basic unity, providing guidance for global revolutionary struggle.

自第一次世界大战爆发和第二国际破产以来（在此期间，欧洲几乎所有的社会民主党都站在各自民族国家的立场上加入了帝国主义战争），左翼在帝国主义问题上的分歧从未达到如此严重的程度，这是当前资本主义结构性危机愈发深刻的一个标志。尽管西方马克思主义阵营中的欧洲中心主义者长期以来一直试图以各种方式削弱帝国主义理论，但列宁的经典著作《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》一个多世纪以来始终在所有关于帝国主义的讨论中占据核心地位。这不仅因为它能够准确地解释两次世界大战，还因为它为理解二战后的全球秩序提供了重要视角。此外，列宁的整个分析并非孤立的，而是在新的历史发展状况下，通过依附理论、不平等交换理论、世界体系理论和全球价值链分析等不同的理论框架得到了补充和发展。由此，马克思主义的帝国主义理论始终保持了其基本统一性，为全球革命斗争提供了指导。

However, today in the West, those who call themselves “socialists” with Eurocentric biases have even completely abandoned the Marxist theory of imperialism. The differences between the Western Left and revolutionaries in the “Global South” on the question of imperialism are greater than at any time in the 20th century. The historical roots of this divergence lie in the decline of U.S. hegemony and the relative weakening of the entire imperialist world order centered on the United States, European countries, and Japan, as opposed to the rise of the economies of former colonies and semi-colonies in the “Global South.” Against this backdrop of extreme polarization, many leftists deny the economic exploitation of peripheral countries by imperialist core countries, and recently there have even been sharp attacks on the anti-imperialist Left.

然而，如今在西方，那些带有欧洲中心主义偏见的、自称为“社会主义者”的人已经甚至完全抛弃了马克思主义的帝国主义理论。西方左翼与“全球南方”的革命者在帝国主义问题上的分歧比20世纪任何时候都要大。这种分歧的历史根源在于美国霸权的衰落，以及以美国、欧洲国家和日本为核心的整个帝国主义世界秩序的相对衰弱，而与之相对的则是“全球南方”前殖民地和半殖民地国家经济的崛起。在这种极端两极分化的背景下，许多左翼人士否认帝国主义中心国家对边缘国家的经济剥削，最近甚至还出现了针对反帝国主义左翼的尖锐攻击。

Currently, we often see the following contradictory assertions from the Western Left. One country cannot exploit another; monopoly capitalism, the economic basis of imperialism, does not exist; imperialist competition and exploitation among states have been replaced by class struggle within a fully globalized transnational capitalism; all major powers today are capitalist countries engaged in imperialist struggle; imperialist countries can be judged primarily by the degree of democracy versus autocracy, so not all imperialisms are the same; imperialism is simply the political policy of one country invading another; humanitarian imperialism aimed at protecting human rights is justified; the ruling classes of the “Global South” are no longer anti-imperialist but have transnational or sub-imperialist tendencies; the “anti-imperialist Left” supports a morally “good” “Global South” against a morally “evil” “Global North,” holding a black-and-white binary opposition; economic imperialism has now been “reversed,” with the “Global East/South” exploiting the “Global West/North”; Lenin mainly studied relations among imperialist powers, not core-periphery imperialist theory; and so on.

当前，我们经常可以看到以下来自西方左翼的相互矛盾的论断。一个国家无法剥削另一个国家；作为帝国主义经济基础的垄断资本主义并不存在；国家间的帝国主义竞争和剥削已经被彻底全球化的跨国资本主义内部的阶级斗争所取代；当今所有大国都是参与帝国主义斗争的资本主义国家；帝国主义国家主要可以依据民主—专制的程度来评判，因此并非所有帝国主义都是相同的；帝国主义就是一个国家侵略另一个国家的政治政策；旨在保护人权的人道帝国主义是合理的；“全球南方”的统治阶级不再是反帝国主义的，而是具有跨国主义或次帝国主义倾向；“反帝国主义的左翼”支持道德上“善”的“全球南方”，反对道德上“恶”的“全球北方”，持一种非黑即白的二元对立论；经济帝国主义如今已经被“逆转”，“全球东方/南方”正在剥削“全球西方/北方”；列宁主要研究帝国主义之间的关系，而不是中心和边缘帝国主义理论；等等。

To understand the complex theoretical and historical issues involved here, it is necessary to study Lenin’s analysis of imperialism, not only the work *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism*, but also all of Lenin’s writings on imperialism from 1916 to 1920. Only then can we understand how the theoretical system of imperialism developed in the 20th century on the basis of Lenin’s analysis and the early Communist International, and how this theory was further refined after World War II. This will lay the foundation for criticizing the current denial of the existence of imperialism by many leftists.

为了理解这里涉及到的复杂的理论和历史问题，必须研究列宁对帝国主义的分析，除了《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》这部著作，还要研究列宁在1916年至1920年间所写的关于帝国主义的全部著作。这样，我们才有可能了解帝国主义理论体系在20世纪是如何在列宁的分析和早期共产国际的基础上发展起来的，以及这一理论在二战后是如何进一步完善的。这将为批判当前众多左翼人士否认帝国主义的存在奠定基础。

I. Lenin’s General Theory of Imperialism

一、列宁关于帝国主义的总体理论

Currently, leftists with a Eurocentric stance generally believe that Lenin did not focus on the inequality between colonial and colonized countries or between core and peripheral countries; instead, his work mainly dealt with horizontal conflicts among major capitalist powers. William I. Robinson, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, even insists that Lenin’s theory of imperialism has nothing to do with the exploitation of one country by another.

当前，持欧洲中心主义立场的左翼普遍认为，列宁没有关注殖民国家与被殖民国家之间或中心与边缘国家之间的不平等问题，相反，他的作品主要涉及资本主义大国之间的横向冲突。美国加州大学圣巴巴拉分校社会学教授威廉·I.罗宾逊（William I.Robinson）甚至坚持认为，列宁的帝国主义理论与一个国家对另一个国家的剥削无关。

Marx deeply despised those who ignored “how within each country a class enriches itself at the expense of another class.” Similarly, in *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism*, Lenin clearly states that the dominant tendency of imperialism is “the exploitation of an ever-increasing number of small and weak nations by a handful of the richest and most powerful nations.” [1]1 Lenin, *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism*, Chapter 7. The phrase “exploitation of an ever-increasing number of small and weak nations by a handful of the richest and most powerful nations” is a direct quotation from Lenin’s text. Later, he also pointed out that “the exploitation of oppressed nations, and especially the exploitation of colonies by a handful of ‘great’ powers” is the economic root of imperialism. Lenin was very clear that this exploitation refers to the “extraction of superprofits” by imperialist countries at the center of the capitalist world system from oppressed countries in the colonial/semi-colonial/dependent world.

马克思十分鄙视那些无视“在每一个国家内，一个阶级是如何牺牲另一个阶级而致富的”人。同样，列宁在《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》一书中明确指出，帝国主义的主导趋势是“极少数最富强的国家剥削愈来愈多的弱小国家”。后来，他还指出，“对被压迫民族的剥削，特别是极少数‘大’国对殖民地的剥削”是帝国主义的经济根源。列宁非常明确地认为，这里所说的剥削是指处于资本主义世界体系中心的帝国主义国家从殖民地/半殖民地/附属地世界中的被压迫国家那里“榨取超额利润”。

Nevertheless, Vivek Chibber, a professor of sociology at New York University, still believes that Lenin’s entire concept of economic imperialism as monopoly capitalism is “flawed,” and that Lenin’s idea that imperialism is economic (not merely political) and that there exists an upper stratum of the working class (labor aristocracy) in developed capitalist countries that benefits from imperialism is also “flawed,” with the significance of his theory mainly confined to the realm of competition among capitalist states.

尽管如此，美国纽约大学社会学教授维维克·齐贝尔（Vivek Chibber）仍然认为，列宁将经济帝国主义视为垄断资本主义的整个概念是“有缺陷的”，列宁认为帝国主义是经济的（而不仅仅是政治的）、发达资本主义国家存在着从帝国主义中受益的上层工人阶级（工人贵族）的观念也是“有缺陷的”，其理论的意义主要局限于资本主义国家之间的竞争领域。

Part of the reason for the above serious misunderstanding of Lenin’s theory and its contemporary significance lies in the tendency of Western radical scholars to study Lenin’s *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism* in isolation, while ignoring his other writings on imperialism from 1916 to 1920. These writings supplement *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism* and directly focus on the exploitation of underdeveloped countries by the major imperialist powers.

导致上述这种对列宁的理论及其当代意义产生严重误解的部分原因在于西方激进学者倾向于孤立地研究列宁的《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》这一著作，而忽略了他写于1916—1920年期间的关于帝国主义的其他文献。这些文献是对《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》的补充，直接聚焦于主要帝国主义国家对不发达国家的剥削问题。

In *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism*, Lenin wrote: “If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.” The rise of monopoly accumulation replaced free competition, creating a vast sphere of superprofits for a relatively small number of companies that gradually came to dominate the economy. Immediately following this, Lenin summarized five features of imperialism: the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; bank capital has merged with industrial capital, and on the basis of this “finance capital” a financial oligarchy has arisen; the export of capital, as distinguished from the export of commodities, has acquired exceptional importance; international monopoly capitalist associations have formed which divide the world among themselves; and the territorial division of the entire world among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.

列宁在《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》中写道：“如果必须给帝国主义下一个尽量简短的定义，那就应当说，帝国主义是资本主义的垄断阶段。”垄断积累的兴起取代了自由竞争，在相对较少的公司中创造了一个巨大的超额利润领域，这些公司逐渐主宰了经济走向。紧接着，列宁总结出了帝国主义的五个特征：生产和资本的集中发展到极高程度，以致造成了在经济生活中起决定作用的垄断组织；银行资本与工业资本已经融合起来，并在“金融资本的”基础上形成了金融寡头；与商品输出不同的资本输出具有特别重要的意义；瓜分世界的资本家国际垄断同盟已经形成；最大的资本主义大国已把世界上的领土瓜分完毕。

Lenin’s above analysis is diametrically opposed to that of Karl Kautsky, who argued that imperialism would develop into “ultra-imperialism,” i.e., the unification of the major capitalist powers through an “alliance of the strongest,” a thesis refuted by the two world wars. Although the major capitalist powers formed a collective imperialist front after World War II, this was the result of U.S. global hegemony. Overall, Kautsky’s view of imperialism as a “policy” is far less convincing than Lenin’s view of it as a “system.”

列宁的上述分析与卡尔·考茨基（Karl Kautsky）的分析截然相反，后者认为帝国主义将发展成为“超帝国主义”，即主要资本主义国家通过“最强者的联盟”实现统一，这一论点被两次世界大战所否定。虽然主要资本主义国家在第二次世界大战后形成了一个集体性的帝国主义阵线，但这是美国全球霸权的结果。总体而言，考茨基将帝国主义视为一种“政策”的观点远不如列宁将其视为一种“体系”的观点更具说服力。

The Research Unit for Political Economy (RUPE) in India points out: “The focus of Lenin’s work *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism* is to reveal the nature of the (First) World War and its roots within capitalism. Therefore, in this work, Lenin does not explore the impact of imperialism on colonies and semi-colonies.” To understand *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism*, it is necessary to examine Lenin’s other writings, primarily those on imperialism composed in the context of the founding of the Communist International, when he directly confronted the anti-imperialist struggles of peripheral countries, especially those in Asia.

印度政治经济研究中心（RUPE）指出：“列宁的《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》这一著作的重点在于揭示（第一次）世界大战的性质及其在资本主义内部的根源。因此，在这部著作中，列宁并没有探讨帝国主义对殖民地和半殖民地的影响。”为了理解《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》，就有必要考察列宁的其他著作，主要是其在共产国际成立的背景下直接面对边缘国家、特别是亚洲国家的反帝斗争时撰写的关于帝国主义的著作。

Lenin was particularly concerned with the exploitation suffered by underdeveloped economies, which was always the primary historical contradiction he faced in his overall analysis of imperialism. As early as 1916, Lenin mentioned in his writings the exploitation of colonies, semi-colonies, and dependent countries by the imperialist powers. In *The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination*, he argued that some colonies/dependent countries could achieve a certain degree of self-determination under capitalist conditions, but “the demand for the immediate liberation of the colonies, which is put forward by all revolutionary Social-Democrats, is also ‘impossible’ of realisation under capitalism without a series of revolutions.” [2]2 The original Chinese text cites Lenin’s *The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination* (1916). The English translation here follows standard editions of Lenin’s Collected Works.

列宁尤为关注不发达经济体遭受的剥削，这一直是他对帝国主义进行整体分析时所面对的首要历史矛盾。早在1916年，列宁就在其著作中提及了帝国主义列强对殖民地、半殖民地和附属国的剥削。在《社会主义革命和民族自决权》中，他认为一些殖民地/附属国在资本主义条件下有可能实现一定程度的自决，但“一切革命的社会民主党人提出的立即解放殖民地的要求，在资本主义制度下，不经过多次革命，也是‘不能实现’的”。

Lenin not only believed that monopoly capital exploited colonies, semi-colonies, and dependent countries, thereby obtaining super-profits, but also that, as Engels had suggested, this enabled monopoly capital to “bribe” a small section of the working class (the upper stratum of the working class), a proposition known as the “labour aristocracy” theory. Lenin strongly reiterated this view in the preface he wrote for *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism* in 1920. He argued that this explained the more conservative nature of the British working-class movement, and of the working-class movements in all the major imperialist countries. He wrote: “If we wish to remain socialists, we must go down and go deeper, to the real masses; the whole meaning and content of the struggle against opportunism lies in this.”

列宁不仅认为垄断资本剥削殖民地、半殖民地和附属国，通过这些手段获得超额利润，而且认为正如恩格斯所暗示的那样，这使得垄断资本能够“收买”工人阶级中的一小部分人（工人阶级上层），这一主张被称为“工人贵族”论。列宁在1920年为《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》所写的序言中着重重申了这一观点。他认为，正是这一点解释了英国工人阶级运动以及所有主要帝国主义国家的工人阶级运动更为保守的本质。他写道：“我们如果愿意仍然成为社会主义者，就应该下到和深入到真正的群众中间去，反机会主义斗争的全部意义和全部内容就在于此。”

In his *Report to the Second All-Russia Congress of Communist Organisations of the Peoples of the East*, Lenin emphasised how “a tiny handful of people on earth” had arrogated to themselves “the right to exploit the majority.” In this context, the struggle against imperialism took precedence even over class struggle, although the two remained intrinsically linked. “The socialist revolution will not be solely, or chiefly, a struggle of the revolutionary proletarians in each country against their own bourgeoisie. No, it will be a struggle of all the colonies and countries oppressed by imperialism, of all dependent countries, against international imperialism.” “The civil war of the working people against the imperialists and exploiters in all the advanced countries is beginning to combine with national wars against international imperialism.”

列宁在《在全俄东部各民族共产党组织第二次代表大会上的报告》中强调了“地球上一小撮人”是如何赋予自己“对大多数人的剥削权”的。在这种情况下，反对帝国主义的斗争甚至优先于阶级斗争，尽管二者在本质上仍然存在内在联系。“社会主义革命不会仅仅是或主要是每一个国家的革命无产者反对本国资产阶级的斗争。不会的，这个革命将是受帝国主义压迫的一切殖民地和国家、一切附属国反对国际帝国主义的斗争”，“各先进国家的劳动人民反对帝国主义者和剥削者的国内战争正开始同反对国际帝国主义的民族战争结合起来”。

Lenin further elaborated this view in his *Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and the Colonial Questions*. He argued that it was necessary “to distinguish clearly between the oppressed, dependent, and unequal nations, on the one hand, and the oppressing, exploiting, and fully sovereign nations, on the other.” “Proletarian internationalism … demands that the interests of the proletarian struggle in any one country be subordinated to the interests of that struggle on a world-wide scale.” He believed that capitalism attempted to conceal the extent of international exploitation by establishing nominally sovereign states, which were in reality “economically, financially and militarily” dependent on the imperialist powers.

列宁在《民族和殖民地问题提纲初稿》中进一步阐述了这一观点。他认为，应当“把被压迫的、附属的、没有平等权利的民族，同压迫的、剥削的、享有充分权利的民族也明确地加以区分”，“无产阶级的国际主义……要求一个国家的无产阶级斗争的利益服从全世界范围的无产阶级斗争的利益”。他认为，资本主义试图通过建立名义上拥有主权的国家来掩盖国际剥削的程度，但实际上，这些国家在“经济、金融和军事上”都依附于帝国主义国家。

Lenin reiterated these views in his *Report of the Commission on the National and the Colonial Questions*, concluding that under the then-current conditions of underdevelopment in the oppressed countries, “any national movement can only be a bourgeois-democratic movement.” These “national-revolutionary” struggles (despite their dominant class character) needed to be supported, but only insofar as they were “truly revolutionary” struggles. Lenin firmly opposed the view that revolution “must inevitably pass through the capitalist stage,” arguing instead that, given the anti-imperialist nature and complex class composition of these revolutions, and with the example of the Soviet Union before them, it was conceivable that they could develop into genuine socialist movements, accomplishing under non-capitalist conditions many of the developmental tasks associated with capitalism.

列宁在《民族和殖民地问题委员会的报告》中重申了这些观点，并得出结论：在目前被压迫国家不发达的条件下，“任何民族运动都只能是资产阶级民主性质的”。这些“民族革命”斗争（尽管具有占主导地位的阶级特征）需要获得支持，但前提是这些斗争是“真正革命的”斗争。列宁坚决反对革命“必须不可避免地经历资本主义阶段”的观点，而是认为，鉴于这些革命的反帝性质和复杂的阶级构成，并且有苏联的例子在前，可以想象它们能够发展成为真正的社会主义运动，在非资本主义的条件下实现与资本主义相关的许多发展任务。

The *Theses on the Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semi-Colonies*, adopted at the Sixth Congress of the Communist International in 1928, represented a high point in the development of the theory of imperialism during the interwar period. The theses stated that the entire economic policy of imperialism towards the colonies was determined by its attempt to maintain and strengthen the dependence of the colonies, intensify their exploitation, and hinder their independent development as far as possible… The greater part of the surplus value extracted from the cheap labour of the colonies and semi-colonies was transferred abroad, leading to an outflow of wealth from the colonial countries.

1928年共产国际第六次代表大会上通过的《关于殖民地和半殖民地国家革命运动的提纲》代表了两次世界大战期间帝国主义理论发展的一个高峰。提纲指出，帝国主义对殖民地的整个经济政策都是由其竭力保持和加强殖民地的依赖性、加强对殖民地的剥削并尽可能地阻碍殖民地独立发展的企图所决定的……从殖民地和半殖民地的廉价劳动力中榨取的大部分剩余价值被转移到国外，导致殖民地国家的财富外流。

The most difficult theoretical and practical problem was the class basis of the anti-imperialist revolution in underdeveloped countries. Lenin emphasised that the struggle against imperialism had to achieve developmental goals usually associated with the national bourgeoisie, but the nature of the “national-revolutionary” struggle was not necessarily determined by the national bourgeoisie. Mao Zedong’s 1925 article, *Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society*, made an important contribution to the anti-imperialist struggle and socialist revolution. In this article, Mao argued that “in economically backward semi-colonial China, the landlord class and the comprador class are entirely appendages of the international bourgeoisie,” while the middle bourgeoisie (mainly referring to the national bourgeoisie) “aspires to attain the status of the big bourgeoisie.” Therefore, “the industrial proletariat is the leading force in our revolution. All the semi-proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie are our closest friends.”

最困难的理论和实践问题是不发达国家反帝国主义革命的阶级基础。列宁强调，反对帝国主义的斗争必须实现通常与民族资产阶级有关的发展目标，但“民族革命”斗争的性质并不一定由民族资产阶级决定。毛泽东写于1925年的《中国社会各阶级的分析》一文为反帝斗争和社会主义革命作出了重要贡献。在这篇文章中，毛泽东认为，“在经济落后的半殖民地的中国，地主阶级和买办阶级完全是国际资产阶级的附庸”，而中产阶级（主要是指民族资产阶级）则“欲达到大资产阶级地位”，因此，“工业无产阶级是革命的领导力量。一切半无产阶级、小资产阶级，是我们最接近的朋友”。

II. Dependency, Unequal Exchange, the Imperialist World-System, and Global Value Chains

二、依附、不平等交换、帝国主义世界体系和全球价值链

After World War II, the imperialist world-system underwent a historical evolution, transcending the geopolitical conditions of Lenin’s era. The United States became the undisputed hegemonic power in the capitalist world-system and launched the Cold War, aiming to contain the Soviet Union while suppressing revolutions around the world. However, following the victory of the Chinese Revolution in 1949, a wave of Marxist-inspired revolutionary decolonisation swept across Asia and Africa.

二战后，帝国主义世界体系发生了历史性演变，超越了列宁时代的地缘政治条件。美国成为资本主义世界体系中毋庸置疑的霸权国家，并发动了冷战，致力于遏制苏联，同时镇压世界各地的革命。然而，1949年中国革命取得胜利后，一场受马克思主义启发的革命性的去殖民化浪潮席卷了亚洲和非洲。

Compared to Asia and Africa, South and Central America had relatively few colonies, having established sovereign states through anti-colonial movements against Spanish and Portuguese rule in the 19th century. Nevertheless, Latin American countries had long since become economic dependencies or neo-colonies of Britain and the United States. Hence, the main issue in the region was to break free from the economic, political, and cultural dependence imposed by US imperialism. Marxist theory in Latin America, particularly concerning imperialism, can be said to have originated in the writings of the Peruvian Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui. The struggle of Augusto César Sandino against US intervention in Nicaragua awakened anti-imperialist consciousness throughout Latin America. Later, the Cuban Revolution, inspired by the anti-imperialist thought of José Martí, triumphed in 1959 and evolved into a struggle for socialism, once again placing Latin America at the forefront of the anti-imperialist revolution, alongside Asia and Africa.

与亚洲和非洲相比，南美洲和中美洲由于在19世纪爆发了反对西班牙和葡萄牙统治的反殖民运动而建立了主权国家，因此殖民地相对较少。然而，拉美国家早已沦为英国和美国的经济附属国或新型殖民地。因此，该地区的主要问题是摆脱美帝国主义强加的经济、政治和文化依赖。拉丁美洲的马克思主义理论，特别是关于帝国主义的理论，可以说是源于秘鲁马克思主义者何塞·卡洛斯·马里亚特吉（José Carlos Mariátegui）的著作。奥古斯托·塞萨尔·桑地诺（Augusto César Sandino）反对美国干预尼加拉瓜的斗争则唤醒了整个拉丁美洲的反帝国主义意识。后来，古巴革命在何塞·马蒂（José Martí）的反帝国主义思想的启发下于1959年取得胜利，并演变为一场争取社会主义的斗争，这使拉丁美洲再次成为反帝国主义革命的前沿阵地，并与亚洲和非洲并驾齐驱。

Due to the development of the revolutionary wave across the three continents of the Third World after World War II, Lenin’s analysis of imperialism was deepened and broadened, reflecting diverse historical conditions and local circumstances, and always emphasising the necessity of revolutionary struggle.

由于二战后第三世界三大洲革命浪潮的发展，列宁对帝国主义的分析得以深化和拓展，反映了诸多不同的历史条件和本土情况，并始终强调进行革命斗争的必要性。

An important figure in the development of imperialist theory and dependency theory after World War II was Paul Baran. In his works, Baran not only presented the imperialist theories of Lenin, the Communist International, and Mao Zedong, but also the experiences of economic planning in the Soviet Union and India. He also integrated these theories with the new conditions after World War II. He argued that imperialism “immeasurably distorted” and obstructed the development of the entire underdeveloped world. Baran proposed the concept of economic surplus. He believed that the fundamental problem hindering the development of underdeveloped countries was that the major imperialist powers extracted the surplus, then invested this appropriated surplus in their own economies, or invested it in peripheral countries to strengthen the long-term exploitation of underdeveloped countries. Like Engels and Lenin, Baran also held that the upper strata of workers in the imperialist centers indirectly benefited from imperialism, thereby forming a “labor aristocracy” that picked up crumbs from the tables of the monopolists, a stratum alienated from the broad working class.

二战后，帝国主义理论和依附理论发展过程中的一个重要人物是保罗·巴兰（Paul Baran）。巴兰在其著作中不仅展现了列宁、共产国际和毛泽东的帝国主义理论，还展现了苏联和印度的经济计划经验。他还将这些理论与二战后的新形势相结合。他认为，帝国主义“不可估量地扭曲”和阻碍了整个不发达世界的发展。巴兰提出了经济剩余的概念。他认为，阻碍不发达国家发展的根本问题是主要的帝国主义列强抽走了剩余，然后将其侵占的剩余投资于本国经济，或投资于边缘国家，以加强对不发达国家的长期剥削。与恩格斯和列宁一样，巴兰也认为，帝国主义中心国家的上层工人间接受益于帝国主义，由此形成了一个从垄断者餐桌上捡食残羹剩饭的“工人贵族”阶层，这一阶层与广大工人阶级格格不入。

Following Mao Zedong, Baran also insisted that the comprador class or big bourgeoisie in underdeveloped countries was directly linked to international capital, playing a parasitic role within their own societies. He wrote: “The main task of imperialism in our time is to prevent the economic development of underdeveloped countries, and if that cannot be done, to slow down and control their economic development.” He explained that “although there are enormous differences among underdeveloped countries,” in this respect, “the underdeveloped countries as a whole continuously export a large part of their economic surplus to the developed countries in the form of interest and dividends.” In almost all respects, dependent economies were merely appendages of the “internal market” of Western capitalism. Hence, the only way out was revolution against imperialism and the establishment of a socialist planned economy. Here, Baran took China as an example, pointing out that China had “broken away from the orbit of world capitalism” and become a source of “inspiration and enlightenment for all other colonial and dependent countries of the world.”

继毛泽东之后，巴兰也坚持认为，不发达国家的买办阶级或大资产阶级直接与国际资本联系在一起，在本国社会中扮演着寄生性的角色。他写道：“帝国主义在我们这个时代的主要任务是阻止不发达国家的经济发展，如果没有办法做到的话，那就减缓和控制不发达国家的经济发展。”他解释说，“虽然不发达国家之间存在巨大差异”，但在这方面，“不发达国家作为一个整体，不断将其大部分经济剩余以利息和股息的形式输送到发达国家”。几乎在所有方面，依附性经济都只是西方资本主义“内部市场”的附属品。因此，唯一的出路就是进行反对帝国主义的革命，并建立社会主义计划经济。在此，巴兰以中国为例指出，中国“脱离了世界资本主义轨道”，成为“激励和启发世界所有其他殖民地和附属国”的源泉。

In Africa, the Egyptian-French Marxist economist Samir Amin made significant contributions to dependency theory, unequal exchange theory, and world-systems theory. Most of Amin’s analysis focused, on the one hand, on the “autocentric” economies at the center of the world capitalist system, which adapted to their own internal logic and engaged in expanded reproduction; and on the other hand, on the “disarticulated” economies of the periphery, whose production was structured according to the demands of the imperial economies. Under imperialist domination, the disarticulated nature of peripheral economies made revolutionary “delinking” from the world imperialist order the only option. For Amin, delinking did not mean absolute separation from the world economy or “autarkic withdrawal”; rather, it meant breaking away from the world labor value system organized around the dominant center and the subordinated periphery, and transitioning to a more “polycentric” world.

在非洲，埃及裔法国马克思主义经济学家萨米尔·阿明（Samir Amin）对依附理论、不平等交换理论和世界体系理论作出了巨大贡献。阿明的大部分分析一方面聚焦处于世界资本主义体系中心的“自我中心型”经济，这种经济适应自身的内在逻辑并进行扩大再生产；另一方面聚焦于边缘经济体的“脱节型”经济，其生产是根据帝国经济的需求来构建的。在帝国主义统治下，边缘经济体的脱节性质使得从世界帝国主义秩序中进行革命性的“脱钩”成为唯一的选择。对阿明来说，脱钩并不是要与世界经济绝对分离或“自给自足式的退出”，相反，它意味着从围绕着占主导地位的中心和受支配的边缘组织起来的世界劳动价值体系中脱钩，并过渡到一个更加“多中心”的世界。

The work of the French Marxist economist Arghiri Emmanuel, *Unequal Exchange: A Study of the Imperialism of Trade*, was also an important contribution to imperialist theory. Emmanuel argued that in the neocolonial era, the relationship between center and peripheral countries was one of unequal exchange. Emmanuel’s work sparked a prolonged debate. Amin pointed out that unequal exchange exists when the wage differential between the “Global North” and the “Global South” is greater than the productivity differential. He further argued that under globalized monopoly finance capital, the law of value operates on a world scale.

法国马克思主义经济学家阿吉里·伊曼纽尔（Arghiri Emmanuel）的著作《不平等交换：对帝国主义贸易的研究》（Unequal Exchange:A Study of the Imperialism of Trade）也是对帝国主义理论的重要贡献。伊曼纽尔认为，在新殖民主义时代，中心国家与边缘国家之间的关系是不平等交换的关系。伊曼纽尔的著作引发了一场旷日持久的辩论。阿明指出，当“全球北方”和“全球南方”的工资差异大于生产率差异时，就存在不平等交换。他进而指出，在全球化的垄断金融资本下，价值规律在世界范围内发挥作用。

In the 1970s, much of Marxist dependency theory began to merge with world-systems theory. World-systems theory treated nation-states as parts of the capitalist world-system, thereby overcoming some of the limitations of dependency theory. Thus, the world-system became the primary unit of analysis, divided into a core and a periphery (along with a semi-periphery and external areas). However, certain versions of world-systems theory, particularly in the work of Giovanni Arrighi, diverged from imperialist theory—he reduced international political-economic relations simply to hegemonic transitions, which was consistent with the views of mainstream international political economy.

1970年代，大部分马克思主义依附理论开始与世界体系理论相融合。世界体系理论将民族国家视为资本主义世界体系的一部分，从而克服了依附理论的某些局限性。因此世界体系成为主要的分析单位，它被分为中心区和边缘区（同时也存在半边缘区和外部区域）。然而，某些版本的世界体系理论，特别是在乔万尼·阿瑞吉（Giovanni Arrighi）的著作中，与帝国主义理论出现了分歧——他将国际政治经济关系简单地归结为霸权的转移，这与主流国际政治经济学的观点是一致。

By the 21st century, analysis of economic imperialism has largely focused on global labor arbitrage and global value chains. The extraction of surplus value by the “Global North” from the “Global South” has been well documented in empirical research. This is because international exploitation is more systematic than ever: it is deeply embedded in global value chains and is manifested in the export of finished goods from the periphery to the semi-periphery and then to the core. The result is the increasing prominence of the theory of “super-exploitation,” i.e., the degree of exploitation in the “Global South” exceeds the global average, undermining the basic subsistence needs of workers in the “Global South.”

到了21世纪，对经济帝国主义的分析大多集中在全球劳动力套利和全球价值链上。“全球北方”从“全球南方”榨取剩余价值的情况在实证研究中得到了充分证明。这是因为国际剥削比以往任何时候都更加系统化：它根深蒂固地存在于全球价值链中，并体现在从边缘到半边缘、再到中心地区的成品出口中。其结果是“超级剥削”理论日益凸显，即“全球南方”的被剥削程度超过了全球平均水平，损害了“全球南方”工人的基本生存需求。

In terms of the geopolitics of imperialism, the focus in the 21st century has been on the continued decline of U.S. hegemony, with analysis concentrating on U.S. efforts since 1991, with the support of Britain, Germany, France, and Japan, to reverse this situation. The goal was to establish a U.S.-led global unipolar force, a tripod of the United States, European countries, and Japan, through a more “naked imperialism.” This counterrevolutionary posture ultimately led to the current “New Cold War.”

就帝国主义的地缘政治而言，21世纪的焦点一直是美国霸权的持续衰落，相关分析集中于美国自1991年以来在英国、德国、法国和日本的支持下试图扭转这一局面的努力。其目标是通过更加“赤裸裸的帝国主义”建立以美国为首的、美国—欧洲国家—日本三足鼎立的全球单极势力。这种反革命态势最终导致了当前的“新冷战”。

Despite the many developments in imperialist theory in the 20th century, what truly stood out was not the theory of imperialism, but the actual intensification of exploitation by the “Global North” of the “Global South,” and the resistance of the latter to it. As Paul Sweezy pointed out in *Modern Capitalism and Other Essays*, the cutting edge of proletarian resistance decisively shifted in the 20th century from the “Global North” to the “Global South.” Since 1917, almost all revolutions have occurred on the periphery of the world capitalist system and have been anti-imperialist revolutions. The vast majority of these revolutions were carried out under the guidance of Marxism and were suppressed by reactionary forces from the imperialist powers. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the principal contradictions of capitalism were the imperialist contradiction and the class contradiction.

尽管帝国主义理论在20世纪有了诸多发展，但真正凸显的不是关于帝国主义的理论，而是“全球北方”对“全球南方”剥削的实际加剧，以及后者对此的抵抗。正如保罗·斯威齐（Paul Sweezy）在《现代资本主义及其他论文》（Modern Capitalism and Other Essays）一书中指出的那样，无产阶级抵抗的锋芒在20世纪从“全球北方”决定性地转向了“全球南方”。自1917年以来，几乎所有的革命都发生在世界资本主义体系的边缘，并且都是反对帝国主义的革命。这些革命绝大多数都是在马克思主义的指导下展开的，并且都遭到了来自帝国主义列强的反动势力的镇压。在20世纪末和21世纪初，资本主义的主要矛盾是帝国主义矛盾和阶级矛盾。

III. The Growing Denial of Imperialism on the Left

三、左翼对帝国主义的日益否认

Voices completely or partially denying imperialism have long existed within the Eurocentric Western left. However, with the revival of the Western left after World War II, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, Western socialists adopted a strong anti-imperialist stance in support of national liberation struggles around the world. But this stance gradually faded with the ebb of the anti-Vietnam War movement in the early 1970s.

完全或部分否认帝国主义的声音在持欧洲中心主义立场的西方左翼中由来已久。然而，随着二战后西方左翼势力的复兴，特别是在1960年代和1970年代，西方社会主义者采取了强烈的反帝立场，以支持世界各地的民族解放斗争。但随着1970年代初反越战运动的退潮，这种立场逐渐淡化。

In 1973, Bill Warren, writing in *New Left Review*, put forward the view that Marx had regarded imperialism as a progressive force in “The Future Results of British Rule in India.” Warren declared that this view was later erroneously overturned by Lenin. Warren’s interpretation of Marx here contradicted the more in-depth studies of Marx conducted by theorists in the United States, India, and Japan since the 1960s, which demonstrated that Marx, from the early 1860s, had recognized the obstructive effect of colonialism on colonial development. Nevertheless, the view that even Marx and Lenin held that “imperialism was a precursor to capitalism” became a widely accepted assumption within the left.

1973年，比尔·沃伦（Bill Warren）在《新左翼评论》（New Left Review）中提出了这样一种观点，即马克思在《不列颠在印度统治的未来结果》中将帝国主义视为一种进步力量。沃伦宣称，这一观点在后来被列宁错误地颠覆了。沃伦在此对马克思的解释与美国、印度和日本的理论家自1960年代起对马克思进行的更为深入的研究观点相左，后者证明马克思自1860年代初就已经认识到殖民主义对殖民地发展的阻碍。然而，认为马克思甚至列宁都持有“帝国主义是资本主义的先驱”这一观点在左翼中却成为了一种被普遍接受的假设。

Behind this analysis lies the refusal of Eurocentric leftists to accept the conclusion that core capitalist states exploit peripheral states by raising the rate of exploitation of workers in dependent countries, and that a large portion of the enormous surplus thus generated is appropriated by the imperialist states at the center of the system. For a long time, socialists holding a Eurocentric position, contravening the analyses of Lenin, Baran, and Amin, have argued that higher productivity in the “Global North” offsets wage differentials between North and South, so that the degree of exploitation in the “Global North” is actually higher than in the “Global South.” But empirical research shows that even when productivity or skill levels are taken into account (in fact, because the same technology provided by multinational corporations is used, productivity or skill levels in export manufacturing in the “Global South” and “Global North” are currently comparable), the rate of exploitation in the “Global South” is much higher, because its unit labor costs are much lower. Indeed, the current trend of outright denial of imperialist theory can be attributed in part to an attempt, in the face of mounting evidence, to evade the reality of the super-exploitation of peripheral countries by core countries by abandoning the entire question of imperialism.

这一分析的背后是持欧洲中心主义立场的左翼拒绝接受以下结论：资本主义中心国家通过提高对附属国工人的剥削率来剥削边缘国家，由此产生的巨大剩余的很大一部分被体系中心的帝国主义国家所占有。长期以来，持欧洲中心主义立场的社会主义者违背列宁、巴兰和阿明等人的分析，认为“全球北方”较高的生产率抵消了南北方的工资差异，以至于“全球北方”的剥削程度实际上高于“全球南方”。但实证研究表明，即使考虑到生产率或技能水平（实际上由于使用的是跨国公司提供的相同技术，目前“全球南方”和“全球北方”出口制造业的生产率或技能水平相当），“全球南方”的剥削率也要高得多，因为其单位劳动力成本要低得多。事实上，当前这种彻底否定帝国主义理论的趋势在某种程度上可以归因于，面对日益增多的证据，有人试图通过放弃整个帝国主义问题来回避中心国家对边缘国家的过度剥削这一现实。

The Western Eurocentric critique of economic imperialism is rooted in their rejection of Engels’s and Lenin’s theory of the “labor aristocracy,” holding that the entire view that a section of the working class in the imperialist core benefits from imperialism is politically undesirable. However, the existence of a “labor aristocracy” is difficult to deny; to some extent, the labor upper stratum (or its representatives) has consistently and opportunistically opposed the needs of the majority of American workers and the worldwide proletarian movement. The overwhelming whiteness of the leadership of most Western trade unions, along with its pronounced racism, further explains why the governments of these countries reactively support imperialist policies.

西方欧洲中心主义对经济帝国主义的批判根源于他们拒绝接受恩格斯和列宁的“工人贵族”理论，认为帝国主义中心地区的部分工人阶级从帝国主义中获益的整个观点在政治上是不可取的。然而，“工人贵族”的存在很难被否认，在某种程度上，劳工上层（或其代表）一直在机会主义地反对美国大多数工人和整个世界无产阶级运动的需要。大多数西方国家工会领导层压倒性的白人特征以及其中鲜明的种族主义进一步解释了为什么这些国家的政府反动地支持帝国主义政策。

Faced with these historical contradictions, Arrighi, in *The Geometry of Imperialism*, denies imperialism in a new way. This book attempts to replace the overall concept of imperialism with the concept of “hegemony,” reducing it to geopolitical content and evading the issue of international economic exploitation. In Arrighi’s view, the old imperialist theory of Lenin’s era is “outdated”; the present is a world system of nation-states, all competing for hegemony.

面对这些历史矛盾，阿瑞吉在《帝国主义几何学》（The Geometry of Imperialism）一书中以一种新的方式否认帝国主义。该书试图用“霸权”这一概念来取代帝国主义的整体概念，并将其简化为地缘政治的内容，回避了国际经济剥削的问题。在阿瑞吉看来，列宁时代的旧帝国主义理论已经“过时”，当下是一个由民族国家组成的世界体系，它们都在争夺霸权。

Under the combined influence of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the subsequent wave of globalization, and the active promotion of a unipolar order by the United States, the left has more openly denied imperialism. In his article “Whatever Happened to Imperialism,” Prabhat Patnaik points out that the “deafening silence” of Marxists in Europe and the United States on the political economy of imperialism during the 1980s and 1990s, a clear break from the 1960s and 1970s, was not the result of extensive theoretical debate within Marxism; on the contrary, it can be attributed to “the immense strengthening and consolidation of imperialism.”

在1989年柏林墙倒塌、随后全球化浪潮来临以及美国积极推进单极秩序等因素的综合影响下，左翼更加公开地否认帝国主义。普拉巴特·帕特奈克（Prabhat Patnaik）在《帝国主义究竟怎么了》一文中指出，1980年代以及1990年代，欧洲和美国的马克思主义者在帝国主义政治经济学方面保持“震耳欲聋的沉默”，与1960年代和1970年代形成了明显的断裂，这并非马克思主义内部广泛理论辩论的结果，相反，它可以归因于“帝国主义的极大强化和巩固”。

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s co-authored book *Empire* is an example of the retreat of the Western left on imperialist theory. Published in 2000, the book received unanimous praise from mainstream American publications such as *The New York Times*, *Time*, and *Foreign Affairs*. Hardt and Negri adopt a “flat world” perspective, arguing that the old hierarchical imperialism has now been replaced by the “smooth space of the capitalist world market.” They declare that “it is no longer possible to demarcate large geographical zones as center and periphery, North and South,” and that “imperialism actually created a straitjacket for capital by interfering with the capitalist tendency toward a flat world.” Hardt and Negri name their concept, modeled on the United States, both decentralized and deterritorialized, based on a global constitutional order, “Empire,” to distinguish it from imperialism.

迈克尔·哈特（Michael Hardt）和安东尼奥·奈格里（Antonio Negri）合著的《帝国》（Empire）一书是西方左翼在帝国主义理论上退却的一个例证。该书于2000年出版，得到了《纽约时报》《时代》和《外交事务》等美国主流报刊的一致好评。哈特和奈格里采取了一种“扁平世界”的视角，认为旧有的等级制帝国主义如今已被“资本主义世界市场的平滑空间”所取代。他们宣称，“不再可能将大片地理区域划分为中心与边缘、北方与南方”，“帝国主义实际上通过干扰资本主义的扁平世界倾向给资本制造了一件紧身衣”。哈特和奈格里将他们以美国为蓝本的、既去中心化又去领土化的、基于全球宪法秩序的概念命名为“帝国”，以区别于帝国主义。

Hardt and Negri’s work provided inspiration for Marxist geographer David Harvey’s *The New Imperialism*. In this book, Harvey reconfigures the theory of imperialism through Marx’s concept of “primitive accumulation,” naming it “accumulation by dispossession.” Here, “accumulation” based on plunder or robbery, rather than exploitation within the economic process, becomes the essence of the “new imperialism.” In Lenin’s theory of imperialism, exploitation is directly linked to monopoly capitalism, whereas in Harvey’s analysis, this role of exploitation is marginalized. This leads him to fantasize about a “‘new’ imperialism” or the re-implementation of a “Good Neighbor Policy” as a solution to international conflicts. This view fails to see the dialectical relationship between imperialism and capitalism, nor does it see that imperialism is as fundamental to the capitalist system as the pursuit of profit itself.

哈特和奈格里的著作为马克思主义地理学家大卫·哈维（David Harvey）的《新帝国主义》（New Imperialism）一书提供了灵感。在这本书中，哈维通过马克思的“原始积累”概念对帝国主义理论进行了重新规划，将其命名为“剥夺性积累”。在这里，基于抢劫或掠夺的“积累”行为，而非经济过程内部的剥削，成为了“新帝国主义”的本质。在列宁的帝国主义理论中，剥削与垄断资本主义直接相关，而在哈维的分析里，剥削的这一作用被边缘化了。这导致他幻想出“‘新’帝国主义”或重新推行“睦邻政策”，以此作为解决国际冲突的办法。这种观点没有看到帝国主义与资本主义的辩证关系，也没有看到帝国主义与追求利润本身一样是资本主义制度的基础。

In 2010, in his book *The Enigma of Capital*, Harvey went a step further, stating that an “unprecedented shift” had occurred, “reversing the long-term trend of wealth flowing from East, Southeast, and South Asia to Europe and North America since the 18th century. (This) has changed the center of gravity of capitalist development.” The 2008 U.S. National Intelligence Council report *Global Trends 2025* provided support for his view, predicting that the world would become more multipolar. However, although the report predicted that Asian economies would continue to grow faster than the United States and European countries by 2025, it did not indicate the “reversal” of global capital flows that Harvey spoke of, let alone a historic reversal of capital flowing from the “Global East/South” to the “Global West/North.”

2010年，哈维在其《资本之谜》（Enigma of Capital）一书中更进一步指出，“前所未有的转变”已经发生，“扭转了自18世纪以来财富从东亚、东南亚和南亚流向欧洲和北美的长期趋势。（这）改变了资本主义发展的重心”。美国国家情报委员会2008年发布的《2025年全球趋势》报告为他的这一观点提供了支持，该报告预测世界将更加多极化。但是，尽管该报告预计到2025年亚洲经济体的增长速度将继续高于美国和欧洲国家，但它并没有指出哈维所说的全球资本流动的“逆转”，更没有指出资本从“全球东方/南方”流向“全球西方/北方”的历史性逆转。

In fact, the United States is unquestionably the hegemonic center of global monopoly finance capital, engaged in a long-term struggle with the regions of the “Global South.” Moishe Postone argues that a view focusing on this is a form of “fetishism” that ultimately becomes entangled in a maze of contradictions. This view, which holds that anti-imperialist politics should be replaced by anti-hegemonic and anti-globalization politics, is itself vulnerable to the accusation that it fetishizes abstract globalization while ignoring the entire history of imperialism.

事实上，美国毫无疑问是全球垄断金融资本的霸权中心，正与“全球南方”地区进行着长期斗争。莫伊舍·普殊同（Moishe Postone）认为，关注这一点的观点是一种“拜物教”，最终会陷入矛盾的迷宫。这种认为反帝国主义政治应该被反霸权和反全球化政治所取代的观点本身就容易受到指责，即它将抽象的全球化奉为神物，而忽视了帝国主义的全部历史。

The latest denial of imperialist theory by Eurocentric Western leftists has extended to criticism of anti-imperialist leftists, closely related to changes in the global order brought about by the decline of U.S. hegemony. Following the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 and the continued rise of China, Obama proposed the “Pivot to Asia” strategy. Subsequently, the Trump administration launched a “New Cold War” targeting China, and the Biden administration has continued to advance this strategy. The U.S. government has increasingly frequently used American financial power to impose massive sanctions on countries perceived to be outside U.S. power and defying it. The escalation of the Ukraine crisis in 2022 has further intensified this situation. Consequently, various left-wing thinkers have undergone a fundamental shift in their views on imperialism, more openly abandoning the traditional critique of imperialism.

持欧洲中心主义立场的西方左翼对帝国主义理论的最新否认已经扩展到对反帝国主义的左翼人士的批判，这与美国霸权衰落所带来的全球秩序的变化密切相关。继2007—2009年全球金融危机和中国持续崛起之后，奥巴马提出了“重返亚洲”（Pivot to Asia）战略。随后，特朗普政府发起了针对中国的“新冷战”，拜登政府持续推进上述战略。美国政府越来越频繁地利用美国的金融力量对那些被视为处于美国权力之外并违抗美国权力的国家实施大规模制裁。2022年升级的乌克兰危机更是加剧了这种态势。因此，各种左翼思想家对帝国主义的看法发生了根本性的转变，更加公开地放弃了传统上对帝国主义的批判。

It is precisely against this historical backdrop that Zibell, in a 2022 interview with *Jacobin* magazine, openly rejected all basic viewpoints of Lenin’s theory of imperialism, proposing that “imperialism should be distinguished from capitalism.” Furthermore, he declared that Lenin’s concept of imperialism as monopoly capitalism was “flawed” because “at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, there were no systematic monopoly trends.” Here, Zibell’s attack on the concept of monopoly capital itself reveals his ignorance of the intensification of capital concentration and centralization in recent decades, an intensification linked to successive waves of mergers and acquisitions, leading to continuously strengthened monopoly power and wealth concentration. Once the concept of monopoly capital is discarded, Zibell also discards any concept of international exploitation or imperialism. He argues that Lenin’s theory is political rather than economic, primarily concerning “competition among states,” and that Lenin’s concept of the “labor aristocracy” “has no significance for any analysis of the ‘Global North’ or global capitalism as a whole.”

正是在这一历史背景下，齐贝尔在2022年接受《雅各宾》（Jacobin）杂志采访时公然拒绝了列宁帝国主义理论的所有基本观点，提出“应将帝国主义与资本主义区分开来”。此外，他还宣称，列宁关于帝国主义是垄断资本主义的概念是“有缺陷的”，因为“在20世纪末和21世纪初，并不存在系统性的垄断趋势”。在这里，齐贝尔对垄断资本概念本身的攻击暴露了他对近几十年来资本集中和集聚状况加剧的无知，这种加剧与接连不断的兼并浪潮有关，导致垄断力量持续增强、财富集中化。一旦摒弃了垄断资本的概念，齐贝尔也就摒弃了任何关于国际剥削或帝国主义的概念。他认为，列宁的理论是政治性的而非经济性的，主要涉及的是“国家间的竞争”，列宁的“工人贵族”概念“对‘全球北方’或全球资本主义的总体分析没有任何意义”。

In Zibell’s view, “anti-imperialism” can be defined as any “collective action within one’s own country opposing one’s own government’s militarism and aggression against other countries.” This constitutes a purely national-political definition, divorced both from proletarian internationalism and from any direct resistance to the laws of motion of capitalism itself at the monopoly stage. Zibell concludes that, overall, we have moved “from a Leninist world to a Kautskyan world.” According to Kautsky’s view, imperialism is merely a state policy, encompassing the alliance of states at the center of the system and, logically, unrelated to the problem of world exploitation.

在齐贝尔看来，“反帝国主义”可以被定义为任何“在本国反对自己政府的军国主义和对其他国家的侵略的集体行动”。这构成了一个纯粹的民族政治定义，既脱离了无产阶级国际主义，也脱离了对处于垄断阶段的资本主义自身运动规律的任何直接反抗。齐贝尔总结道，总的来说，我们已经从“列宁主义的世界转变为考茨基式的世界”。按照考茨基的观点，帝国主义仅仅是一种国家政策，它涵盖了处于体系中心的各个国家的联合，且从逻辑上讲，与世界剥削问题并无关联。

Similarly, Robinson, in his 2018 book *Into the Tempest*, states: “The classic image of imperialism as an external relation of domination is now obsolete… The end of the extensive expansion of capitalism is the end of the imperialist era of world capitalism.” He also attempts, in articles such as “The Unbearable Binary of the ‘Anti-Imperialist’ Left,” to replace imperialism with “a fully globalized capitalism ruled by a transnational capitalist class,” and attacks any concept of the “Global North” exploiting the “Global South” or the “former Third World,” arguing that one country cannot exploit another. This is a challenge to Marxist theory of imperialism. Robinson declares that “imperialism” refers only to “the violent outward expansion of capital, and all the political, military, and ideological mechanisms involved therein.” He argues that the essence of Lenin’s theory of imperialism is “competition among national bourgeoisies,” not the exploitation of countries on the periphery of the capitalist world.

同样，罗宾逊在其2018年出版的《进入风暴》（Into the Tempest）一书中指出：“帝国主义作为一种外部统治关系的经典形象现在已经过时……资本主义广泛扩张的结束就是世界资本主义的帝国主义时代的结束。”他还在《“反帝国主义”左翼令人难以忍受的二元对立》等文章中试图用“由跨国资本家阶级统治的完全全球化的资本主义”来取代帝国主义，并抨击任何关于“全球北方”剥削“全球南方”或“前第三世界”的概念，认为一个国家无法剥削另一个国家。这是对马克思主义帝国主义理论的挑战。罗宾逊宣称，“帝国主义”仅指“资本的暴力向外扩张，以及由此涉及的所有政治、军事和意识形态机制”。他认为，列宁的帝国主义理论的本质是“民族资产阶级之间的竞争”，而不是对资本主义世界边缘国家的剥削。

Similarly, Gilbert Achcar, in a 2021 article in *The Nation* magazine titled “How to Avoid Stupid Anti-Imperialism,” accuses the entire anti-imperialist left of “campism,” i.e., loyalty to a particular camp or bloc, because they explicitly oppose the hybrid imperialism of the United States and its three major allies [5]5 The “three major allies” likely refers to the United States’ closest military allies, typically understood as the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada (or sometimes Japan and South Korea in an Asia-Pacific context), though the text does not specify. targeting the “Global South.” Socialists who stand firmly with the peoples of peripheral countries in principle, opposing all military interventions and economic sanctions, are accused of “defending dictators.” At the same time, Achcar states that if intervention aims to support so-called progressive movements locally, then “progressive anti-imperialists” should support military interventions by Western imperialist powers for regime change.

同样，吉尔伯特·阿赫卡尔（Gilbert Achcar）于2021年在《国家》（The Nation）杂志上发表题为《如何避免愚蠢的反帝国主义》的文章，指责整个反对帝国主义的左翼都是“阵营主义”，即效忠于某一特定的阵营或集团，因为他们明确反对美国及其三巨头盟友针对“全球南方”的混合帝国主义。那些在原则上坚定地与周边国家人民站在一起、反对一切军事干预和经济制裁的社会主义者被指责为“为独裁者辩护”。与此同时，阿赫卡尔表示，如果干预的目的是在当地帮助所谓的进步运动，那么“进步的反帝国主义者”应该支持西方帝国主义列强为实现政权更迭而进行的军事干预。

Today, those who criticize the anti-imperialist left target Amin, arguing that decoupling from imperialism is simply impossible, even in a more multipolar world no longer dominated by the imperialist center of the global economy. Undoubtedly, the world today is developing in the direction of multipolarity. However, Jerry Harris, Secretary of the Global Studies Association of North America, argued in an interview that the current fully globalized world, or one ruled by a transnational capitalist class, cannot move toward multipolarity. This view aligns with Robinson’s, holding that the current world order offers no possibility of breakthrough because there is no longer a genuine imperialist camp division, and apart from a few countries, there are almost no independent sovereign nation-states; hence, no other possibility exists outside the global capitalist system. Here, the analysis of left-wing transnational capital theorists fails to understand that no matter how globalized capital becomes, it cannot constitute a global state. Therefore, a genuine global bourgeoisie or transnational capitalist state cannot exist.

如今，那些批评反对帝国主义的左翼的人将矛头指向阿明，认为与帝国主义的脱钩根本不可能发生，即使是在一个不再由全球经济的帝国主义中心主导的、更加多中心的世界中。毫无疑问，当今世界正在朝着多极化的方向发展。然而，北美全球研究协会（The Global Studies Association of North America）秘书杰里·哈里斯（Jerry Harris）在接受采访时争辩说，当今完全全球化或由跨国资本家阶级统治的世界不可能走向多极化。这一观点与罗宾逊一致，认为当前的世界秩序已无突破的可能，因为不再存在真正的帝国主义阵营划分，除了少数国家外，也几乎没有独立自主的民族国家，所以在全球资本主义体系之外，不存在任何其他的可能性。在此，左翼跨国资本理论家的分析未能理解：无论资本如何全球化，它都无法构成一个全球国家。因此，不可能存在真正的全球资产阶级或跨国资本主义国家。

Another theoretical characteristic of Eurocentric Western leftists is the simplified application of Lenin’s theory of imperialism, viewing it merely as a horizontal model of imperialist conflict among great powers. Here, China and Russia are depicted as belonging to the same camp (despite representing vastly different political-economic systems), competing with the imperialist forces constituted by the United States, European countries, and Japan. Medium-level or semi-peripheral countries of the “Global South” are depicted as “sub-imperialist” countries. The concept of “sub-imperialism” was first proposed by Brazilian scholar Ruy Mauro Marini in the context of dependency theory, but is now used in a distinctly different way. This new viewpoint, following the logic of viewing imperialism primarily from a horizontal rather than vertical perspective, extends the characteristics of imperialist states to semi-peripheral countries and emerging economies, classifying them as imperialist or sub-imperialist states.

持欧洲中心主义立场的西方左翼人士的另一个理论特点是对列宁的帝国主义理论进行了简化应用，仅仅将其视为大国之间横向的帝国主义冲突模式。在这里，中国和俄罗斯被描绘成同一阵营（尽管二者代表着截然不同的政治经济制度），与美国、欧洲国家和日本构成的帝国主义势力进行竞争。“全球南方”的中等水平国家或半边缘国家被描绘成“次帝国主义”国家。“次帝国主义”这一概念最早由巴西学者鲁伊·毛罗·马里尼（Ruy Mauro Marini）在依附理论的背景下提出，但现在却以一种截然不同的方式被使用。这一新的观点本着主要从横向而非纵向的角度看待帝国主义的思路，将帝国主义国家的特征扩展到半边缘国家和新兴经济体，使其被归类为帝国主义或次帝国主义国家。

Today, international imperialism regards China as an imperialist state in the same sense as the United States, ignoring the role of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and China’s development path. However, the basis on which Eurocentric Western leftists attempt to view China as imperialist is nothing more than China’s rapid economic growth, continuous expansion of capital export, measures to strengthen its own regional security (in the face of encirclement by US military bases and alliances), and its questioning of the imperial order dominated by the United States and the West. Yet, China’s foreign policy does not seek to join the US-dominated imperialist order, nor to replace it with a so-called new imperialist order, but is committed to promoting the self-determination of all countries, while opposing bloc geopolitics and military intervention. The Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, and Global Civilization Initiative proposed by the Chinese government together constitute the main proposals for world peace today. China has no military bases overseas, has not conducted any overseas military intervention, and has not participated in any war except to defend its own territory.

如今，国际帝国主义将中国视为与美国同样意义上的帝国主义国家，而无视“中国特色社会主义”的作用和中国的发展道路。然而，持欧洲中心主义立场的西方左翼人士试图将中国视为帝国主义的依据无非是中国经济的快速增长、资本输出的不断扩大、（面对美国军事基地及其联盟的包围）加强自身地区安全的措施，以及其对美国和西方主导下的帝国秩序的质疑。然而，中国的外交政策并不寻求加入美国主导的帝国主义秩序，也不是要以一种所谓新的帝国主义秩序取而代之，而是致力于促进各国自决，同时反对集团地缘政治和军事干预。中国政府提出的全球发展倡议、全球安全倡议和全球文明倡议共同构成了当今世界和平的主要建议。中国在海外没有军事基地，没有进行过任何海外军事干预，除了保卫自己的疆土外，没有参与过任何战争。

China has not appropriated the economic surplus generated by the United States; on the contrary, the actual situation is the opposite. Commodities produced in “Global South” countries have lower unit labor costs, leading to continuously expanding gross profit margins for multinational corporations from the core of the world system. These multinationals produce goods in China and other developing countries that are exported for consumption in “Global North” countries, where the final sales prices of these commodities are several times the export prices of the producing countries. Within the context of international super-exploitation, China has developed rapidly by virtue of its openness to the world market, the leverage of a strong state-owned sector, a relatively planned approach to development, and other key factors. At the same time, a large portion of the surplus generated by its export manufacturing sector is siphoned off, filling the coffers of multinational corporations headquartered in the world economy’s core, and China remains, to a significant extent, a developing country. As imperialist powers at the core of the capitalist world system, the United States, European countries, and Japan still maintain technological, financial, and military hegemony globally (even if this hegemony is rapidly weakening) and continue to rely on the net extraction of economic surplus from “Global South” countries.

中国并没有侵占美国产生的经济剩余，而且现实情况恰恰相反。“全球南方”国家生产的商品单位劳动力成本较低，导致来自世界体系中心的跨国公司的毛利率不断扩大，这些跨国公司在中国和其他发展中国家生产的商品被出口到“全球北方”国家消费，而这些国家的商品最终销售价格是生产国商品出口价格的数倍。在国际超级剥削的环境中，中国凭借对世界市场的开放、强大的国有部门的杠杆作用、相对有计划的发展方式以及其他关键因素迅速发展起来。与此同时，其出口制造业部门所产生的大部分盈余被抽走，充实了位于世界经济中心的跨国公司的金库，中国在很大程度上仍是一个发展中国家。作为资本主义世界体系中心的帝国主义大国，美国、欧洲国家和日本仍然在全球范围内保持着技术、金融和军事霸权（即使这种霸权正在迅速削弱），并持续依赖于从“全球南方”国家净榨取经济剩余。

In stark contrast to China, the United States has historically conducted military interventions in 101 countries. Since World War II, the United States has waged hundreds of wars/military operations across five continents. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, these interventions have accelerated. Today, in the context of the “New Cold War,” the U.S. government is expanding its military alliances, aiming to secure its military superiority worldwide. The United States maintains as many as 902 overseas military bases.

与中国形成鲜明对比的是，美国在历史上对101个国家进行过军事干预。自二战以来，美国在五大洲进行了数百次战争/军事行动。自苏联解体和冷战结束以来，这些干预行动更是加速进行。如今，在“新冷战”的背景下，美国政府正在扩大其军事联盟，旨在确保其在世界各地的军事优势。美国在海外拥有多达902个军事基地。

In July 2024, the U.S. magazine *The Call* published an article titled “‘Multipolar World’: A Euphemism for Supporting Multiple Imperialisms,” accusing anti-imperialists sympathetic to China and the “Global South” of repeating the errors of the Second International. Here, history is completely turned upside down. The social democratic parties of the Second International participated alongside their respective states in wars to partition the world, especially in the scramble for and exploitation of colonies, with not a single party sympathizing with “the wretched of the earth.” Only the Russian Bolsheviks, along with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht’s Spartacus League in Germany, opposed World War I and stood with the underdeveloped countries. Following Lenin and Luxemburg is not to repeat the mistakes of the social democrats of the Second International. Quite the opposite: siding with imperialist states against underdeveloped countries is to commit a crime against humanity similar to that of the majority of social democrats in the Second International. Standing with the “Global South” does not distort “the revolutionary principles of Marxism.” For over a century, the center of revolution has been the periphery of the capitalist world, not its core.

2024年7月，美国《呼声》（The Call）杂志发表题为《“多极世界”:支持多重帝国主义的委婉说法》的文章，指责对中国和“全球南方”表示同情的反帝国主义者重复了第二国际的错误。在这里，历史被完全颠倒了。第二国际的社会民主党与其各自的国家一起参与了瓜分世界的战争，尤其是对殖民地的争夺和剥削，没有一个政党同情“全世界受苦的人”。只有俄国的布尔什维克以及罗莎·卢森堡（Rosa Luxemburg）和卡尔·李卜克内西（Karl Liebknecht）在德国组建的斯巴达克同盟反对一战并与不发达国家站在一起。追随列宁和卢森堡并不是要重蹈第二国际社会民主党人的覆辙。恰恰相反，站在帝国主义国家一边反对不发达国家才是犯下了与第二国际大多数社会民主党人类似的反人类罪行。与“全球南方”国家站在一起并没有歪曲“马克思主义的革命原则”。一个多世纪以来，革命的中心一直是资本主义世界的边缘而非中心。

Adopting an anti-imperialist stance does not mean abandoning class struggle within the core capitalist countries—quite the contrary. Given the reality that the upper stratum of the working class in imperialist countries constitutes a labor aristocracy, it is necessary to view this struggle from the perspective of those most deeply oppressed by capitalism and colonialism. It is no accident that the U.S. anti-imperialist movement has been deeply rooted in the Black radical tradition, represented in the early 20th century by W.E.B. Du Bois and today by the Black Alliance for Peace. Racism and imperialism have always been intrinsically linked; therefore, any genuine anti-imperialist movement is also a movement against racial capitalism.

采取反对帝国主义的立场并不意味着放弃资本主义中心国家内部的阶级斗争——而是恰恰相反。鉴于帝国主义国家工人阶级上层是工人贵族这一现实，我们有必要，从那些受资本主义和殖民主义压迫最深的人的角度来看待这场斗争。美国的反帝运动一直深深植根于黑人激进主义传统绝非偶然，这一点在20世纪初以W.E.B.杜波依斯（W.E.B.Du Bois）为代表，如今则以“黑人争取和平联盟”（Black Alliance for Peace）为代表。种族主义与帝国主义在本质上一直是紧密联系在一起的，因此，任何真正的反帝国主义运动都是反对种族资本主义的运动。

Today, the imperialist world system is not only intensifying global exploitation but also driving us toward the brink of global destruction through the planetary ecological crisis and the increasingly likely prospect of large-scale thermonuclear war. Under these circumstances, for left-wing thinkers to regard anti-imperialism as the enemy is equivalent to supporting imperialism, barbarism, and extinctionism. As Mariátegui said, “We are anti-imperialists because we are Marxists, because we are revolutionaries, because we oppose capitalism with socialism”—because we stand on the side of all humanity.

如今，帝国主义世界体系不仅在加剧世界剥削，还在通过全球性生态危机和日益可能发生的大规模热核战争将我们推向全球毁灭的边缘。在这种情况下，左翼思想家如果认为反帝国主义就是敌人，那就等同于支持帝国主义、野蛮主义和灭绝主义。正如马里亚特吉所说的，“我们是反帝国主义者，因为我们是马克思主义者，因为我们是革命者，因为我们用社会主义反对资本主义”——因为我们站在全人类的立场上。

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑