From Classical Imperialism Theory to New Imperialism Theory: Concepts and Paradigms

Imperialism critique theory is an important component of capitalist critique theory, and in its development it has formed two representative theoretical forms. The first is the classical imperialism theory that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, represented by Marxist theorists such as Hilferding, Luxemburg, Bukharin, and Lenin. The second is the new imperialism theory formed in the early 21st century, represented by contemporary foreign left-wing scholars such as Harvey, Wood, and Callinicos. With the revival of imperialism studies since the 21st century, foreign left-wing scholars have engaged in debates around the relationship between classical imperialism theory and new imperialism theory. Regarding the relationship between the two imperialism theories, there are mainly different views such as the "continuity thesis," the "rupture thesis," and the "transcendence thesis." The "continuity thesis," represented by British scholar Callinicos, holds that the relationship between the two imperialism theories is one of inheritance and development, reflected in specific viewpoints, methodologies, and analytical paradigms. The "rupture thesis," represented by American scholar Harvey, holds that classical imperialism theory is outdated, and changes in the material conditions of social life and social practice require new theoretical tools for explanation, hence the emergence of new imperialism theory. The "transcendence thesis," represented by Canadian scholars Panitch and Gindin, classifies classical imperialism theory as a form of economic reductionism and a transhistorical paradigm, opposing its application to analyzing the contemporary world, while the construction of new imperialism theory is a transcendence of classical imperialism theory. The divergence among these different views is mainly concentrated on two questions: "what is imperialism" and "how to study imperialism." Therefore, clarifying the definitions of imperialism and the research paradigms of the two theories helps to discern the relationship between classical imperialism theory and new imperialism theory, and deepens our understanding of imperialism critique theory. This will also be beneficial for our current study and judgment of the nature and forms of capitalism in the context of globalization.

帝国主义批判理论是资本主义批判理论的重要组成部分，在其发展历程中形成了两种具有代表性的理论形态。第一种是产生于19世纪末20世纪初的经典帝国主义论，以希法亭、卢森堡、布哈林和列宁等马克思主义理论家为代表。第二种是形成于21世纪初期的新帝国主义论，以哈维、伍德、卡利尼科斯等当代国外左翼学者为代表。随着21世纪以来帝国主义研究的复兴，国外左翼学者围绕经典帝国主义论与新帝国主义论的关系问题展开了争论。关于两种帝国主义论的关系问题，主要存在“延续论”、“断裂论”和“超越论”等不同观点。“延续论”以英国学者卡利尼科斯为代表，认为两种帝国主义论之间是一种承续和发展的关系，在具体观点、方法论和分析范式上都有体现。“断裂论”以美国学者哈维为代表，认为经典帝国主义论已经过时，社会物质生活条件和社会实践的变化需要新的理论工具来解释，新帝国主义论应运而生。“超越论”以加拿大学者帕尼奇和金丁为代表，将经典帝国主义论归为一种经济还原论和超历史的范式，反对将其沿用于分析当今世界，而新帝国主义论的构建是对经典帝国主义论的超越。这些不同观点的分歧主要集中在“什么是帝国主义”和“怎样研究帝国主义”两个问题上。因此，梳理清楚两种理论关于帝国主义的定义以及研究范式，有助于辨明经典帝国主义论与新帝国主义论的关系问题，深化我们关于帝国主义批判理论的认识。这对于我们今天研判全球化语境中资本主义的本质和形态也将有所助益。

I. Imperialism as a Specific Policy

一、作为特定政策的帝国主义

In classical imperialism theory, Marxist theorists before Lenin mainly understood imperialism as a policy. The English word "imperial" appeared in the 14th century, with its etymology traceable to the Latin "imperium," meaning "command" or "supreme power," while the English words "imperialism" and "imperialist" with modern connotations were not widely used until after 1870. In 1902, British economist Hobson, in his groundbreaking work *Imperialism*, defined imperialism as the "conscious policy" of developed industrial countries, and from the perspective of social pathology, exposed the economic origins and political significance of imperialist policy. This definition influenced the interpretation of imperialism in classical imperialism theory. In the early 20th century, Hilferding and Luxemburg successively defined imperialism as the policy and political expression of developed capitalist countries, endowing the concept of imperialism with a clear connotation of capitalist critique, and exploring the complex relationship between capitalist economic forces and political forces.

在经典帝国主义论中，列宁之前的马克思主义理论家主要将帝国主义理解为一种政策。英文imperial（帝国的）一词出现在14世纪，词源可追溯到拉丁文imperium， 意为command（指挥、命令）或supreme power（至高的权力），而英文中的imperialism（帝国主义）与具有现代意涵的imperialist（帝国主义的）直到1870年以后才被大量使用。1902年，英国经济学家霍布森在其开创性著作《帝国主义》中，将帝国主义界定为发达工业国家的“有意识的政策”，并从社会病理的角度揭露了帝国主义政策的经济起源和政治意义，这一界定影响了经典帝国主义论关于帝国主义的解读。20世纪初期，希法亭和卢森堡相继将帝国主义定义为发达资本主义国家的政策和政治表现，赋予帝国主义概念资本主义批判的明确内涵，探讨了资本主义经济力量和政治力量之间的复杂关系。

Hilferding's theory of finance capital laid the political-economic foundation of classical imperialism theory and had a profound impact on later theorists' understanding of imperialism. He revealed the characteristics of imperialism from the nature of finance capital, defining imperialism as the "economic policy of finance capital." He pointed out that finance capital is based on monopoly combinations, and imperialism, as the economic policy of finance capital, superseded the liberal state view representing the early capitalist manufactories and factory interests, prominently manifested in the replacement of the free trade policy typified by Britain with the protective tariff system typified by Germany and the United States. This protective tariff system greatly promoted the formation of monopoly organizations such as cartels by restricting foreign competition, but its limitation of economic zones also hindered the development of industrial scale and the international division of labor, ultimately forcing capital to seek new growth space through foreign export. With the widespread development of capital export, the struggle among developed capitalist countries for colonies intensified, and coupled with the need to rely on violent means to implement colonial policies in backward regions, capitalist power politics gradually replaced the capitalist state view and political practice centered on liberalism. Hilferding's interlocking analysis of finance capital, the protective tariff system, capital export, colonial politics, and violent means presents the prominent feature of the political form under the dominance of finance capital in the early 20th century—"dominating state power to thereby implement imperialist policy"—while simultaneously revealing the intertwined and interactive relationship between capitalist economic forces and political forces under the rule of finance capital magnates. On one hand, there is the formation of political systems adapted to changed economic conditions; on the other, the transformed political system in turn influences the economic structure. Both forces and their interaction jointly drive the process of social history.

希法亭的金融资本论奠定了经典帝国主义论的政治经济学基础，对之后理论家关于帝国主义的认识产生了深远影响。他从金融资本的性质揭示帝国主义的特征，将帝国主义界定为“金融资本的经济政策”。他指出，金融资本以垄断联合为基础，帝国主义作为金融资本的经济政策扬弃了代表早期资本主义工场手工业和工厂利益的自由主义国家观，突出表现为以德国和美国为典型的保护关税制度取代了以英国为典型的自由贸易政策。这种保护关税制度通过限制外国竞争极大促进了卡特尔等垄断组织的形成，但它对经济区的限制又阻碍了产业规模和国际分工的发展，最终迫使资本通过对外输出来寻求新的增长空间。随着资本输出的普遍发展，发达资本主义国家争夺殖民地的斗争日益激化，加之在落后地区推行殖民政策需要依靠暴力手段，资本主义强权政治逐渐取代以自由主义为内核的资本主义国家观和政治实践。希法亭对金融资本、保护关税制度、资本输出、殖民政治、暴力手段等环环相扣的分析，呈现出20世纪初期金融资本居于统治地位的政治形式的突出特征——“支配国家政权从而推行帝国主义政策”，同时展现了金融资本巨头统治下资本主义经济力量和政治力量之间彼此交织、相互作用的关系。一端是与变化了的经济条件相适应的政治制度的形成，另一端是转型的政治制度反过来对经济结构产生影响，两种力量及其交互作用共同推动了社会历史进程。

In *The Accumulation of Capital*, Luxemburg interprets imperialism as "the political expression of the competitive struggle of capital accumulation for the still open non-capitalist environment." She argues that when Marx analyzes capital accumulation within a social structure composed of capitalists and workers, he falls into a circular explanation of "production for production's sake," failing to answer the question of who are the new consumers of expanded reproduction, and thus cannot fully explain why imperialism moves toward colonial expansion and militarism. She attempts to revise the theoretical presupposition of *Capital* that treats capitalist production as a self-sufficient closed system, introducing non-capitalist forms and political factors to re-examine the historical conditions of capital accumulation. In her view, capitalist accumulation, both historically and in reality, always depends on the erosion and assimilation of non-capitalist social strata and social structures. This process is realized through means such as revolution and war, colonial policy, railway construction, international loans, heavy state taxation, and the dumping of cheap commodities. Luxemburg also particularly emphasizes that violence is "the perpetual weapon of capital accumulation." In the stage of primitive accumulation of capital, violent means are used to drive away indigenous peoples, plunder peasant property, and enforce forced labor. In the imperialist stage, violent means are used to occupy colonies, suppress local resistance, and struggle with other developed countries over the seizure of colonies. According to Luxemburg's analysis, when the capitalist mode of production achieves universal dominance in all countries and production sectors—that is, when non-capitalist forms are universally dissolved—the development of capitalism reaches its peak and simultaneously moves toward collapse. Therefore, Luxemburg says imperialism is "the final stage of capitalism in its historical career." On one hand, Luxemburg describes the political expression of capitalism from the perspective of inter-state relations, revealing not only the predatory relationship of developed capitalist countries toward backward countries but also the competitive relationship among developed capitalist countries themselves. On the other hand, she analyzes the accumulation mechanism, contradictory movements, and future trends of imperialism from the perspective of the relationship between different economic and social formations. Dialectically viewed, Luxemburg's "revision" of Marx's theory of expanded reproduction is based on a misunderstanding, but her description of capital's external expansion truthfully reflects that the development process of capitalism is filled with a violent picture of sword and fire, blood and tears, and contradictions and conflicts.

在《资本积累论》一书中，卢森堡把帝国主义诠释为“资本积累对依然开放的非资本主义环境的竞争性争夺的政治表现”。她认为马克思在由资本家和劳动者构成的社会结构中分析资本积累时，会陷入“为生产而生产”的循环解释，没有回答谁是扩大再生产的新消费者的问题，也就不能充分解释帝国主义为何走向殖民扩张和军国主义。她尝试通过改变《资本论》将资本主义生产视为自足封闭体系的理论预设，引入非资本主义形态和政治因素，重新探讨资本积累的诸历史条件。在她看来，资本主义积累不仅在历史上，而且在现实中，始终依存于对非资本主义社会阶层和社会结构的侵蚀和同化，这一过程通过革命与战争、殖民政策、铁路建设、国际贷款、国家重税、廉价商品倾销等途径得以实现。卢森堡还特别强调，暴力是“资本积累永远使用的武器”。在资本原始积累阶段，暴力手段被用于驱赶土著居民，掠夺农民财产，以及强制劳动。在帝国主义阶段，暴力手段被用于占领殖民地，压制本地人的反抗，以及与其他发达国家在争夺殖民地上进行斗争。根据卢森堡的分析，当资本主义生产方式在一切国家和生产部门占据普遍的统治地位，也就是非资本主义形态普遍解体之时，资本主义的发展就达到了顶点，同时也走向了崩溃。因此，卢森堡说帝国主义就是“资本主义在其历史生涯的最后阶段”。一方面，卢森堡从国家间关系描述了资本主义的政治表现，不仅揭示了发达资本主义国家对落后国家的掠夺性关系，还呈现了发达资本主义国家之间的竞争性关系。另一方面，她从不同经济社会形态的关系分析了帝国主义的积累机制、矛盾运动和未来趋势。辩证地看，卢森堡对马克思的扩大再生产理论的“修正”建立在误解的基础上，但她对资本对外扩张的描述真实地反映出资本主义的发展进程充斥着剑与火、血与泪的暴力图景和矛盾冲突。

Apart from classical imperialism theory, Kautsky, who proposed the theory of “ultra-imperialism,” also understood imperialism from the perspective of the relationship between capitalist industrial production and agricultural production, as a special “political intention” arising from highly developed industrial capitalism, namely, “the striving of every industrial capitalist nation to conquer and annex more and more agricultural regions.” [9]9 Kautsky’s “ultra-imperialism” (or “super-imperialism”) theory posited that capitalist nations might eventually form a cartel-like alliance to jointly exploit the world, thereby transcending inter-imperialist rivalries. Kautsky attributed the main cause of capitalist crises to the imbalance between the two departments resulting from the faster growth of industrial production compared to agricultural production within the capitalist mode of production, which hinders capital accumulation. To overcome this imbalance and ensure that agricultural production can continuously supply raw materials and food for industrial production, capitalist industrial nations would exchange products with foreign agricultural regions. In Kautsky’s view, capitalist industrial nations preferred colonial rule over free trade to organize this exchange, because this could directly prevent agricultural regions from developing their own industries, thereby reducing competition for capitalist industry on the one hand and fixing agricultural regions as their sources of raw materials on the other. Kautsky said: “Whether a country develops an independent capitalist industry depends mainly on its political power.” The countries of Western Europe and the United States could rely on protective tariff systems to develop their own industries independently and compete with Britain on the world market, while backward regions could only become agricultural production zones for capitalist countries. Kautsky’s theory of imperialism explained the important role of political power in capitalist development, even having a dominant influence in certain circumstances. However, his argumentation process had many problems. The first and foremost was that interpreting capitalist crises and colonial policy from the perspective of the imbalance between industry and agriculture failed to grasp the inner nature of capital and its effects. Secondly, when Kautsky excluded finance capital, capital export, cartels, and the like from the connotation of the concept of imperialism, his grasp of the essential characteristics of imperialism was inevitably called into question.

除了经典帝国主义论以外，提出“超帝国主义论”的考茨基也从资本主义工业生产和农业生产的关系角度，将帝国主义理解为由高度发展的工业资本主义产生的特殊的“政治意图”，即“每个工业资本主义民族力图征服和吞并愈来愈多的农业区域”。考茨基将资本主义危机的产生主要归因于资本主义生产方式中工业生产比农业生产增长快导致两个部类比例失衡，阻碍资本积累。为了克服这种比例失衡，保证农业生产能够持续不断地为工业生产提供原料和粮食，资本主义工业国家会与外国农业地区交换产品。在考茨基看来，资本主义工业国家更倾向于采用殖民统治而非自由贸易来组织这种交换，因为这样可以直接阻止农业地区发展自己的工业，一方面减少资本主义工业的竞争，另一方面将农业地区固定为自己的原料产地。考茨基说：“一个国家是否发展独立的资本主义工业，这主要取决于它的政治力量。”西欧诸国和美国可以依靠保护关税制度独立发展本国工业，与英国在世界市场上进行竞争，而落后地区只能沦为资本主义国家的农业产区。考茨基的帝国主义论阐释了政治力量对资本主义发展的重要作用，甚至在某些情况下具有主导性的影响。但他的论证过程存在诸多问题。首要一点就是，从工农业比例失调来解读资本主义危机和殖民政策，没有抓住资本的内在本性及其影响。其次，当考茨基将金融资本、资本输出、卡特尔等排除在帝国主义概念的内涵之外时，他对帝国主义本质特征的把握必然会受到质疑。

From Hilferding and Luxemburg to Kautsky, these theorists all regarded imperialism as a specific policy. They deeply studied the tariff systems, international loan systems, colonial policies, sphere-of-influence policies, violent means, etc., of capitalist countries at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Through these imperialist practices, they examined the political power of highly developed capitalism and revealed the changing relationship between the bourgeoisie and state power. Although debates about their theories of imperialism continue to this day, these theories of imperialism undoubtedly opened the prelude to the study of imperialism and laid the foundation for the subsequent formation of scientific theories of imperialism by Bukharin and Lenin.

从希法亭、卢森堡到考茨基，这些理论家都把帝国主义视为特定的政策。他们深入研究19世纪末20世纪初资本主义国家的关税制度、国际借款制度、殖民政策、势力范围政策、暴力手段等，透过这些帝国主义实践，考察了高度发展的资本主义的政治力量，揭示出资产阶级与国家权力的关系嬗变。虽然关于他们帝国主义论的争论一直延续至今，但这些帝国主义论无疑开启了帝国主义研究的序幕，为之后布哈林和列宁形成科学的帝国主义论打下了基础。

II. Imperialism as a Historical Stage

二、作为历史阶段的帝国主义

Contrary to the view of “transcendentalist” critiques that classical imperialism theory is supra-historicist, classical imperialism theorists did not attempt to construct a theory universally applicable to all social formations, but focused on a historical and concrete analysis of capitalism at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Although Kautsky’s theory of “ultra-imperialism” is difficult to escape the suspicion of falling into supra-historicism, the theorists of imperialism, including him, all emphasized the need for a historicized interpretation of the origins of imperialism, that is, understanding imperialism as a highly developed stage of capitalism. This view also became an important yardstick for distinguishing ancient empires from modern empires. Callinicos clearly pointed out: “More specifically, the distinctiveness of the Marxist theory of imperialism lies in the fact that it does not simply treat empire as a transhistorical form of political domination—Michael Doyle’s concise definition of imperialism, for example, is ‘the effective control, whether formal or informal, of a subordinate society by an imperial society’—but situates modern imperialism in the context of the historical development of the capitalist mode of production.” Hilferding’s theory of finance capital, Luxemburg’s theory of capital accumulation, and Kautsky’s theory of industrial equilibrium can all be seen as attempts at a historicized interpretation of the formation of imperialism. This historicized interpretation was more prominently reflected in the theories of imperialism of Bukharin and Lenin. Building on the research of their predecessors, Bukharin and Lenin developed the policy theory of imperialism into a stage theory of imperialism.

与“超越论”批评经典帝国主义论为超历史主义的观点相反，经典帝国主义理论家并不试图构建一种普遍适用于一切社会形态的理论，而是聚焦于对19世纪末20世纪初的资本主义进行历史的、具体的分析。虽然考茨基的“超帝国主义论”难逃陷入超历史主义的质疑，但包括他在内的帝国主义论理论家都强调要对帝国主义的起源进行历史化的解读，也就是把帝国主义理解为资本主义高度发展的阶段。这一观点也成为区分古代帝国和现代帝国的重要尺度。卡利尼科斯明确指出：“更具体地说，马克思主义帝国主义论的独特之处在于，它没有简单地将帝国视为一种超历史的政治统治形式——例如，迈克尔·道尔对帝国主义的简洁定义是‘帝国社会对从属社会的正式或非正式的有效控制’——而是将现代帝国主义置于资本主义生产方式的历史发展背景中。”希法亭的金融资本论、卢森堡的资本积累论以及考茨基的产业均衡论，都可视为对帝国主义的形成进行历史化解读的尝试。这种历史化解读在布哈林和列宁的帝国主义论中得到了更为显著的体现。在前人研究的基础上，布哈林和列宁将帝国主义的政策论发展为帝国主义的阶段论。

In Bukharin’s theory, imperialism is both a policy and a historical stage. On the one hand, Bukharin absorbed Hilferding’s view and regarded imperialism as the “policy” or “ideology” of finance capital. As a superstructure corresponding to a certain economic base, the function of imperialism is to maintain and promote the expanded reproduction of certain relations of production on a world scale. Specifically, as the policy or ideology of finance capital, the function of imperialism is that “it supports the structure of finance capital; it subjects the whole world to the domination of finance capital; it replaces the old pre-capitalist relations of production and the old capitalist relations of production with the relations of production of finance capital.” In Bukharin’s view, the policy of finance capital is first and foremost manifested as a “policy of conquest” demanding the expansion of one’s own territory. This policy of conquest is driven by “the conflict between the growth of productive forces and the ‘national’ limitations of the production organization,” a conflict directly manifested in the intensification of competition among bourgeois groups of various countries for sales markets, raw material markets, and investment spheres. For example, the policy of monopolizing “spheres of influence” is an important component of imperialism. By seizing sales markets, raw material markets, and investment spheres, it sustains the expanded reproduction of capitalist relations of production and consolidates the dominant position of finance capital. Compared to Kautsky, who only analyzed the underdeveloped regions being occupied as sources of raw materials by capitalist countries from the perspective of uneven development between industry and agriculture, Bukharin examined the dynamic mechanism of imperialism more deeply and comprehensively.

在布哈林的理论中，帝国主义既是一种政策，也是一个历史阶段。一方面，布哈林吸收了希法亭的观点，将帝国主义看作金融资本的“政策”或“意识形态”。作为与一定经济基础相适应的上层建筑，帝国主义的职能在于维护和促进一定生产关系在世界范围的扩大再生产。具体而言，作为金融资本的政策或意识形态，帝国主义的职能是“它支撑金融资本的结构；它使全世界服从于金融资本的统治；它以金融资本的生产关系代替古老的前资本主义生产关系和旧的资本主义的生产关系”。在布哈林看来，金融资本的政策首先体现为要求扩张本国领土的“征服政策”，这种征服政策由“生产力的增长与生产组织的‘民族的’局限性之间的冲突”所驱动，这种冲突直接表现为各国资产阶级集团争夺销售市场、原料市场和投资范围竞争的激烈化。譬如，垄断“势力范围”政策就是帝国主义的重要组成，通过攫取销售市场、原料市场与投资范围，以维系资本主义生产关系的扩大再生产，巩固金融资本的统治地位。相较于考茨基仅仅从工农业发展不均衡分析资本主义国家将欠发达地区侵占为原料产地，布哈林更深刻和全面地考察了帝国主义的动力机制。

On the other hand, Bukharin also regarded imperialism as a historical entity, endowing imperialism with the meaning of a historical stage. He observed that at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, finance capitalism replaced industrial capitalism as the dominant form. The latter had free competition as its theme of the times, while the former moved towards monopoly and militarism in competition. Bukharin said: “In reality, finance capitalism is the historical continuation of the period of industrial capitalism, just as industrial capitalism was the continuation of the stage of commercial capitalism.” At the same time, he believed: “The remnants of the former ‘laissez-faire’ ideas have disappeared, and the era of the new ‘mercantilism,’ that is, the era of imperialism, has begun.” In Bukharin’s exposition, imperialism, finance capitalism, and the new mercantilism have the same referent, namely, the new stage of capitalism that replaced free-competition capitalism. Bukharin’s definition and understanding of imperialism received high praise from Lenin. In his preface to Bukharin’s book *Imperialism and World Economy*, Lenin praised the book’s major contribution as “treating imperialism as a whole, as a definite stage of highly developed capitalism.”

另一方面，布哈林又将帝国主义看作一个历史实体，赋予帝国主义以历史阶段的含义。他观察到，19世纪末20世纪初，金融资本主义取代工业资本主义成为主导，后者以自由竞争为时代主题，而前者在竞争中走向垄断和军国主义。布哈林说：“实际上，金融资本主义是工业资本主义时期的历史继续，就象工业资本主义是商业资本主义阶段的继续一样。”同时，他认为：“从前的‘自由放任’观念的残余消失了，新‘重商主义’时代即帝国主义时代开始到来。”在布哈林的论述中，帝国主义与金融资本主义、新重商主义具有相同的所指，即取代了自由资本主义的资本主义新阶段。布哈林对帝国主义的界定和认识获得了列宁的高度评价。列宁在为布哈林《世界经济和帝国主义》一书所作的序言中，称赞该书的一大贡献就是“把帝国主义看成一个整体，看成极其发达的资本主义的一定的发展阶段”。

It was not until Lenin that the stage theory of imperialism was established. In Lenin’s analysis, imperialism is no longer purely a policy corresponding to a certain economic base, but a specific stage of capitalism, namely “the monopoly stage of capitalism” or “monopoly capitalism.” In the article “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism,” Lenin gave a more precise and complete definition of imperialism: “Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. This specificity has three aspects: (1) imperialism is monopoly capitalism; (2) imperialism is parasitic or decaying capitalism; (3) imperialism is moribund capitalism.” Among these, the monopolistic character of imperialism is manifested in the formation of monopoly organizations, the concentration of production, the dominance of big banks, the rule of the financial oligarchy, and the division of the world by international cartels; the parasitic or decaying character of imperialism is manifested in the decadent tendency of private property, the rise of a rentier financial stratum, the export of capital, political reaction, and the exploitation of colonies; and the moribund character of imperialism is manifested in its heralding the beginning of the transition from capitalism to socialism. These analyses by Lenin echo the classic definition of imperialism he gave in the book *Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism*. Lenin said: “Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance 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 biggest capitalist powers has been completed.” He specifically pointed out that this is a purely economic concept, not involving non-economic aspects. For Lenin, the core of the concept of imperialism shifted from the political manifestation of capitalism to the economic essence of capitalism. This terminological innovation greatly influenced later generations’ understanding and evaluation of classical imperialism theory.

直到列宁，帝国主义的阶段论才得以确立。在列宁的分析中，帝国主义不再纯粹是与一定的经济基础相适应的政策，而是资本主义的特定阶段，即“资本主义的垄断阶段”或者说“垄断资本主义”。在《帝国主义和社会主义运动中的分裂》一文中，列宁赋予帝国主义更为确切和完备的定义：“帝国主义是资本主义的特殊历史阶段。这个特点分三个方面：（1）帝国主义是垄断的资本主义；（2）帝国主义是寄生的或腐朽的资本主义；（3）帝国主义是垂死的资本主义。”其中，帝国主义的垄断性体现在垄断组织的形成、生产集中、大银行的支配、金融寡头的统治以及国际卡特尔瓜分世界等；帝国主义的寄生性或腐朽性表现为私有制的腐朽趋势、金融食利阶层的崛起、资本输出、政治反动以及剥削殖民地等；而帝国主义的垂死性体现为预示着资本主义向社会主义过渡的开端。列宁的这些分析与他在《帝国主义是资本主义的最高阶段》一书中对帝国主义作出的经典界定相呼应。列宁说：“帝国主义是发展到垄断组织和金融资本的统治已经确立、资本输出具有突出意义、国际托拉斯开始瓜分世界、一些最大的资本主义国家已把世界全部领土瓜分完毕这一阶段的资本主义。”他特别指出这是一个纯粹经济的概念，不涉及非经济方面的问题。在列宁这里，帝国主义概念的内核从资本主义的政治表现转变为资本主义的经济实质。这一术语革新很大程度影响了后世对经典帝国主义论的认识和评判。

Upon careful examination, it can be seen that although Lenin focused on presenting the economic essence of imperialism, his theory of imperialism actually encompassed both the economic essence and the political manifestation. Lenin’s theory of imperialism drew on the views of Hilferding and Bukharin, discussing the protective tariff system, the international loan system, foreign colonial policy, the sphere of influence policy, and arms expansion, thereby revealing the profound contradictions among developed capitalist countries and between developed capitalist countries and backward countries, and reflecting on the social nature of imperialist wars. Lenin’s analysis presented two main characteristics that distinguished imperialism from all historical stages at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, namely the dominance of finance capital and the implementation of colonial policy. Therefore, the imperialism discussed by Lenin is a historical stage of capitalism, and the international relations he presented include both international economic relations and international political relations. For Lenin, imperialism does not simply refer to the policy, behavior, or doctrine of expanding territory and power, but reflects the overall changes in capitalism at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

仔细辨析可见，虽然列宁着力于呈现帝国主义的经济实质，但他的帝国主义论实际涵盖了经济实质和政治表现两个方面。列宁的帝国主义论汲取了希法亭和布哈林等的观点，讨论保护关税制度、国际借贷制度、对外殖民政策、势力范围政策、军备扩张，进而揭示发达资本主义国家之间以及发达资本主义国家与落后国家之间的深刻矛盾，反思帝国主义战争的社会性质。列宁的分析呈现出19世纪末20世纪初帝国主义区别于一切历史阶段的两个主要特征，即金融资本的统治和殖民政策的推行。因此，列宁所探讨的帝国主义是资本主义的一个历史阶段，他所呈现的国际关系既包括国际经济关系，也包括国际政治关系。在列宁这里，帝国主义不单纯指扩张领土与权力的政策、行为或主张，而是反映了19世纪末20世纪初资本主义的总体变化。

As a historical stage, imperialism necessarily has a process of formation, development, and decline. Kautsky’s “ultra-imperialism” theory only saw the starting point of imperialism but forgot its endpoint. Kautsky believed that one developmental trend of imperialism was “the joint exploitation of the world by internationally united finance capital in place of the mutual struggle among national finance capitals.” Lenin, however, believed that imperialism was the stage where the contradictions of capitalism had developed to an acute point, that it was “moribund capitalism,” heralding “the eve of the proletarian social revolution.” This view stands in stark contrast to Kautsky’s “ultra-imperialism” theory, which overly optimistically predicted the joint exploitation by imperialist states while ignoring its inherent tendency toward decline. Therefore, the meaning Lenin gave to imperialism as a historical stage essentially pointed to a historical qualitative change and the arrival of a critical point. In this regard, contemporary scholar Harding analyzes: “*Imperialism* is first and foremost concerned with the definition of an epoch. The audacity and significance of *Imperialism* lies in its identification, on a global scale, of the death throes and the moment of decline of an entire historical epoch, and the moment of birth of a new historical epoch. Leninism explicitly defined an epoch for all humanity—the epoch of being now in a choice between socialism and barbarism.”

作为一个历史阶段，帝国主义必然有其形成、发展和衰落的过程。考茨基的“超帝国主义论”只看到了帝国主义的起点，却遗忘了它的终点。考茨基认为帝国主义的一种发展趋势是“国际上联合起来的金融资本对世界的共同剥削来代替各国金融资本之间的相互斗争”。而列宁认为帝国主义是资本主义的矛盾发展到尖锐化的阶段，是“垂死的资本主义”，预示着“无产阶级社会革命的前夜”。这一观点与考茨基的“超帝国主义论”形成鲜明对比，后者过于乐观地预测了帝国主义国家间的联合剥削，而忽视了其内在的衰落趋势。因此，列宁赋予帝国主义历史阶段的意涵实质指向了一种历史质变和临界点的到来。对此，当代学者哈丁分析道：“《帝国主义论》首先关注的是对时代的定义。《帝国主义论》的胆识和重要意义在于，它在全球范围内确定了整整一个历史时代的垂死挣扎和没落的时刻，确定了一个新历史时代诞生的时刻。列宁主义明确地为全人类定义了一个时代——现在正处于在社会主义和野蛮之间进行选择的时代。”

Lenin’s theory of imperialism not only provided later scholars with an important perspective for understanding imperialism but also profoundly influenced their understanding and judgment of contemporary imperialism. At the beginning of the 21st century, one theoretical background for foreign left-wing scholars proposing the new imperialism theory was precisely viewing the imperialism formed since the 1970s, especially after the end of the Cold War, as a new stage of capitalism. Since the 1970s, the capitalist world has undergone extensive neoliberal reforms, reshaping the international political and economic system. After the end of the Cold War, the United States became the sole superpower in the world, and the world pattern of “one superpower, multiple great powers” gradually took shape. For example, Harvey, in his book *The New Imperialism*, regards 1870–1945 as the rise of bourgeois imperialism, 1945–1970 as the history of post-WWII US hegemony, and 1970–2000 as neoliberal hegemony. Similarly, Callinicos, in his book *Imperialism and Global Political Economy*, divides the history of imperialism into three stages: classical imperialism from 1870–1945, superpower imperialism from 1945–1991, and imperialism after the end of the Cold War in 1991. In these periodizations, imperialism has already been regarded as a specific historical stage, and how to understand, or what paradigm to adopt to study, the different stages of imperialism is another important issue.

列宁的帝国主义论，不仅为后世学者提供了理解帝国主义的重要视角，也深刻影响了他们对当代帝国主义的认识和研判。21世纪初期，国外左翼学者提出新帝国主义论的一个理论背景，正是将20世纪70年代以来特别是冷战结束后形成的帝国主义视为资本主义的一个新阶段。20世纪70年代以来，资本主义世界进行了广泛的新自由主义改革，重塑了国际政治经济体系。而冷战结束后，美国成为世界上唯一的超级大国，“一超多强”的世界格局逐渐形成。如哈维在《新帝国主义》一书将1870—1945年视为资产阶级帝国主义的兴起，1945—1970年为二战后美国霸权的历史，1970—2000年为新自由主义霸权。又如卡利尼科斯在《帝国主义和全球政治经济学》一书中将帝国主义史划分为三个阶段，即1870—1945年的经典帝国主义、1945—1991年的超级大国帝国主义，以及1991年冷战结束后的帝国主义。在这些断代史中，帝国主义已然被视为一个特定的历史阶段，而如何认识或者说采用什么范式来研究帝国主义的不同阶段则是另一个重要问题。

III. The Economic-Political Paradigm Debate in Imperialism Studies

三、帝国主义研究中的经济—政治范式之争

Regarding the research paradigm of imperialism, the academic community mainly focuses on how it explains the relationship between economic forces and political forces. This involves the question of how to understand the research paradigm of classical imperialism and its contemporary applicability. This article argues that although classical imperialism theory analyzes imperialism from the economic aspect and emphasizes the foundational position of the economy, it does not simply treat political manifestations as an epiphenomenon. On the contrary, this theory deeply analyzes the dialectical interaction between capitalist economic forces and political forces, and points out the important role of state power in maintaining the capitalist order. In this regard, Luxemburg and Bukharin conducted extensive discussions, providing valuable theoretical resources for later scholars to interpret the essence of imperialism.

关于帝国主义的研究范式，学界主要聚焦于其如何阐释经济力量和政治力量之间的关系。这涉及如何理解经典帝国主义的研究范式及其当代适用性的问题。本文认为，经典帝国主义论虽然从经济方面着手分析帝国主义，并强调经济的基础地位，但没有简单地把政治表现看作一种附带现象。相反，这一理论深入剖析了资本主义经济力量与政治力量之间的辩证互动，并指出了国家权力在维系资本主义秩序上的重要作用。在这一方面，卢森堡和布哈林进行了较多讨论，为后世学者诠释帝国主义的本质提供了宝贵的理论资源。

Luxemburg regarded capital accumulation as a historical process mixing economic “peaceful competition” and political violence. When analyzing the means by which capitalism invades non-capitalist modes of production, she said: “The main methods of this struggle are political force (revolution, war), state taxation, and cheap commodities; these methods are either applied simultaneously or used in sequence, complementing each other... forming an alliance where political force and economic factors advance side by side.” She further pointed out that political violence does not only appear in the stage of primitive accumulation but is applied in every stage of capital accumulation. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the violent means of capital accumulation were manifested in colonial expansion, forced labor, and militarism. Therefore, Luxemburg emphasized that capital accumulation is a whole with two different levels: one is a purely economic process, mainly manifested in the exchange of equivalent commodities between capitalists and workers, where freedom, equality, and ownership formally dominate; the other is a process of violence, fraud, oppression, and plunder, manifested in the relationship between capitalism and non-capitalist modes of production, with the main methods being colonial policy, the international loan system, and war. In Luxemburg’s view, to fully understand capitalism, especially imperialism, these two aspects must be organically combined, so as to reflect the real historical process and achieve the unity of theory and history.

卢森堡把资本积累看作一个混杂着经济的“和平竞争”和政治暴力的历史进程。在分析资本主义入侵非资本主义生产方式的手段时，她说：“这一战斗的主要方法有政治力量（革命、战争）、国家的重税和廉价的商品；这些方法或者被同时应用，或者被依次使用、互为补充……形成了一种政治力量与经济因素齐头并进的联盟。”她进一步指出，政治暴力不止出现在原始积累阶段，而是被应用于资本积累的每一个阶段。在19世纪末20世纪初，资本积累的暴力手段体现为殖民扩张、强制劳动和军国主义等。因此，卢森堡强调资本积累是一个具有两个不同层面的整体：一个是纯粹的经济过程，主要体现为资本家和劳动者之间的商品等价交换，自由、平等和所有权在形式上居于主导地位；另一个是暴力、欺诈、压迫、掠夺的过程，体现在资本主义与非资本主义生产方式之间的关系，主要方法是殖民政策、国际借款制度与战争。在卢森堡看来，要全面理解资本主义特别是帝国主义，必须把这两个方面有机结合起来，从而才能反映出真实的历史进程，达到理论与历史的统一。

Bukharin, from another angle, explored the relationship between the economic power and political power of capitalism. Focusing on the tension between the unlimited expansion of capitalism and the limitations of the nation-state, he analyzed imperialism within the perspective of the world economy. He revealed two parallel and opposing tendencies in the process of capitalist development: on the one hand, capitalism always manifests a tendency to expand, i.e., "the tendency to extend its sphere of influence beyond national borders," mainly embodied in the formation of a world market based on international division of labor and international exchange, and the process of internationalization of economic life; on the other hand, the internationalization of economic life intensifies conflicts of interest among the bourgeois groups of various nation-states, manifested in the intensification of competition for world sales markets, world raw material markets, and spheres of investment, ultimately leading to the escalation of conflicts among capitalist nation-states and an increased risk of war. Therefore, Bukharin believed that to study the developmental tendencies of capitalism, one must study both the internationalization of capitalist interests and the nationalization of capitalist interests. It is the latter that leads to the outbreak of imperialist wars, causing "the most intense upheavals and the deepest disasters," and "most forcefully raises the question of new forms of social life." [12]12 Bukharin, *Imperialism and World Economy*, p. 106. By analyzing the internationalization and nationalization of capital, Bukharin deeply explored the characteristics and relationship of the economic and political power of capitalism.

布哈林则从另一个角度探讨了资本主义的经济力量和政治力量的关系。他着眼于资本主义扩张的无限性与民族国家的局限性之间的张力，将帝国主义置于世界经济的视野中进行分析。他揭示出资本主义发展进程中两种并行发生且相互对立的趋向：一方面，资本主义总是表现出扩张的趋势，即“扩大它的势力范围，越出国家疆界的趋势”，主要体现为以国际分工和国际交换为基础的世界市场的形成和经济生活国际化的过程；另一方面，经济生活的国际化会加剧各民族国家的资产阶级集团的利益冲突，体现为争夺世界销售市场、世界原料市场和投资范围竞争的激烈化，最终导致资本主义民族国家之间的冲突升级和战争隐患的增加。因此，布哈林认为，研究资本主义的发展趋向，既要研究资本家利益的国际化，还要研究资本家利益的民族化过程。正是后者导致了帝国主义战争的爆发，“造成最剧烈的震荡和最深重的灾难”，并“最强有力地提出了建立社会生活的新形式问题”。通过分析资本的国际化和资本的民族化过程，布哈林深入探讨了资本主义的经济力量和政治力量的特性及关系。

At the beginning of the 21st century, around the understanding of the relationship between economic power and political power in classical imperialism theory and its applicability in contemporary society, left-wing scholars abroad engaged in heated discussions. Among them, the advocates of the "transcendence thesis," Panitch and Gindin, argued that classical imperialism theory prioritizes economic determinants, neglecting the theoretical importance of the relative autonomy of the state, and therefore is unsuitable for analyzing the complex phenomena of contemporary capitalism. They said: "Capitalist states have developed various means to promote and coordinate capital accumulation, as well as to anticipate future problems and contain them when they arise, which is often embodied in different institutions with specialized knowledge." Based on this, they proposed introducing state theory into the study of global capitalism, emphasizing the important role played by the United States in the formation of the "informal empire" and global capitalism after World War II.

在21世纪初，围绕经典帝国主义论中经济力量和政治力量关系的理解及其在当代社会的适用性，国外左翼学者展开了热烈的讨论。其中，“超越论”的倡导者帕尼奇和金丁认为，帝国主义的经典理论将经济决定因素放在首位，忽略了国家相对自主性在理论上的重要性，因此不适用于分析当代资本主义的复杂现象。他们说：“资本主义国家已经发展出各种手段来促进和协调资本积累，以及预测未来的问题并在问题出现时加以遏制，这通常体现在具有专业知识的不同机构中。”基于此，他们提出把国家理论引入对全球资本主义的研究中，强调第二次世界大战后美国在“非正式帝国”和全球资本主义形成中所发挥的重要作用。

Harvey, Callinicos, and Wood, among others, proposed different analytical frameworks. They tend to adopt an economic-political, capital-state binary paradigm to study new imperialism, but they diverge in the specific articulation and understanding of this paradigm. Among them, the representative of the "rupture thesis," Harvey, questions the contemporary applicability of classical imperialism theory, proposing the use of a dual logic of power (i.e., "the capital logic of power" and "the territorial logic of power") to analyze new imperialism. He traces the origin of this analytical paradigm back to Giovanni Arrighi, a representative of world-systems theory, rather than to Luxemburg or Bukharin. Drawing on Arrighi's views in *The Long Twentieth Century*, Harvey further points out that "the dialectical relationship between these two distinct but mutually entangled logics of power lays the foundation for analyzing capitalist imperialism." Meanwhile, the representative of the "continuity thesis," Callinicos, advocates using "economic competition between capitals" and "geopolitical competition between states" to dissect imperialism. He argues that classical imperialism theory, especially Bukharin's, has already indicated that modern imperialism is the result of the fusion of two different forms of competition—economic competition and geopolitical competition—and therefore classical imperialism theory is a necessary tool for studying the contemporary world. Furthermore, Wood uses "economic power" and "extra-economic power" as the basic framework for analyzing new imperialism, concretizing these two concepts into the tension between "global capital" and "nation-state." This relationship issue was actually already expressed in Bukharin's discussion of the expansiveness of capital and the limitations of the nation-state. The difference is that Wood believes the particularity of new imperialism lies in the separation of economic power from extra-economic power; the expansion of capital's economic hegemony can far exceed the boundaries of direct political control, while the maintenance of economic power depends on restricted extra-economic power, thus forming a complex and contradictory relationship. Wood's analysis explains the fundamental difference between the new type of empire and traditional colonial empires: the former mainly maintains hegemony by manipulating the economic laws of capitalism, while the latter primarily uses extra-economic coercion such as direct political rule and military conquest.

哈维、卡利尼科斯和伍德等则提出了不同的分析框架。他们倾向于采用经济—政治、资本—国家的二元范式来研究新帝国主义，但他们在这一范式的具体表述和认识上却存在分歧。其中，“断裂论”的代表哈维质疑经典帝国主义论的当代适用性，提出运用权力的双重逻辑（即“权力的资本逻辑”和“权力的领土逻辑”）来分析新帝国主义。他将这一分析范式的提出上溯到世界体系理论的代表人物乔万尼·阿瑞吉，而不是卢森堡或布哈林。哈维借鉴了阿瑞吉在《漫长的20世纪》中的观点，进一步指出“这两种明显不同但却相互纠缠的权力逻辑之间的辩证关系，为分析资本主义的帝国主义打下了基础”。而“延续论”的代表卡利尼科斯主张采用“资本之间的经济竞争”和“国家间的地缘政治竞争”来剖析帝国主义。他认为，经典帝国主义论特别是布哈林的帝国主义论已经指出，现代帝国主义是经济竞争和地缘政治竞争两种不同形式的竞争相融合的结果，因此经典帝国主义论是研究当代世界的必要工具。此外，伍德以“经济力量”和“超经济力量”作为分析新帝国主义的基本框架，并把这两个概念具体化为“全球资本”和“民族国家”之间的张力关系。这一关系问题实际上在布哈林对资本的扩张性和民族国家的局限性的讨论中已经得到表达。不同的是，伍德认为新帝国主义的特殊性在于其经济力量与超经济力量相分离，资本的经济霸权的扩展可以远远超出直接政治控制的界限，而经济力量的维持又有赖于受到限制的超经济力量，从而形成了一种复杂矛盾的关系。伍德的分析解释了新型帝国和传统殖民帝国的根本区别，前者主要通过操纵资本主义经济法则来维持霸权，而后者以直接的政治统治和军事征服等超经济强制为主要手段。

The use of binary paradigms by left-wing scholars abroad to analyze contemporary capitalism has sparked some controversy, especially facing criticism from theorists of the transnational state. For example, American scholar William Robinson points out that the global-national binary contradicts the fact that "a transnational state apparatus is emerging from within the nation-state system." He argues that the key to overcoming this paradox lies in "returning to a historical-materialist method of studying the state," understanding the state as "the institutionalization of class relations around a specific pattern of social production," i.e., treating economy and politics as different elements of the same whole. Robinson's view indicates a noteworthy phenomenon: whether these contemporary left-wing scholars studying new imperialism are supporters or opponents of the binary paradigm, they all invariably choose to return to historical materialism when establishing research paradigms for contemporary capitalism.

国外左翼学者运用二元范式分析当代资本主义的做法引起了一些争议，尤其是受到了跨国国家理论家的批评。如美国学者威廉·罗宾逊指出，全球—国家二元论与“跨国国家机器正在从民族国家体系的内部产生”这一事实相悖。他认为，走出悖论的关键在于“重返历史—唯物主义的国家研究方法”，把国家理解为“围绕特定社会生产格局的阶级关系的制度化”，即把经济和政治看作同一个整体的不同要素。罗宾逊的观点表明了一个值得关注的现象，无论这些研究新帝国主义的当代左翼学者是二元范式的支持者还是反对者，在确立当代资本主义的研究范式时都不约而同地选择回到历史唯物主义。

IV. "Returning to Historical Materialism" and the Theoretical Reconstruction of New Imperialism Studies

四、“重返历史唯物主义”与新帝国主义研究的理论重构

"Returning to historical materialism" is a path commonly chosen by left-wing scholars abroad when establishing research paradigms for new imperialism. An important reason for this choice is that historical materialism accurately grasps the dialectical relationship between economy and politics, providing a scientific method for studying and judging contemporary capitalism in the era of globalization. From this perspective, the debates and divergences among left-wing scholars abroad when exploring old and new imperialism research paradigms essentially stem from their different understandings and applications of historical materialism.

“重返历史唯物主义”是国外左翼学者在确立新帝国主义研究范式时共同选择的路径。这一选择的重要原因在于历史唯物主义准确把握了经济与政治的辩证关系，为在全球化时代研判当代资本主义提供了科学的方法。从这一角度看，国外左翼学者在探讨新旧帝国主义研究范式时产生的争论和分歧，实质上源于他们对历史唯物主义的理解差异和不同运用。

The debate between the representative of the "continuity thesis," Callinicos, and the representatives of the "transcendence thesis," Panitch and Gindin, on imperialism theory is a typical example. In imperialism studies, Callinicos emphasizes the determining role of economic factors, while Panitch and Gindin emphasize the relative autonomy of the state. This divergence leads to fundamental differences in their interpretations of historical materialism. Callinicos points out that viewing imperialism as the product of the fusion of economic competition and geopolitical competition is partly to avoid treating geopolitical competition merely as an epiphenomenon of economic competition, but insisting on the primacy of the economy is fundamental to Marxism, requiring the development of imperialism to be understood within the context of the structural crisis tendencies of the capitalist mode of production. Panitch and Gindin, however, argue that Callinicos falls into a simple repetition of classical imperialism theory, not only replacing "inter-imperialist rivalry" with the loose concept of "geopolitical competition" but also overestimating the impact of economic crises on political stability. They point out that the reason for Callinicos's theoretical tendency lies in his failure to conduct an in-depth historical-materialist analysis of the state and interstate relations within global capitalism.

“延续论”的代表卡利尼科斯和“超越论”的代表帕尼奇、金丁之间关于帝国主义论的争论就是一个典型的例子。在帝国主义研究中，卡利尼科斯强调经济因素的决定性作用，而帕尼奇和金丁强调国家相对自主性，这种分歧使他们对历史唯物主义的阐释形成了根本性差异。卡利尼科斯指出，将帝国主义视为经济竞争和地缘政治竞争相互融合的产物，部分原因是避免把地缘政治竞争仅看作经济竞争的附带现象，但坚持经济的首要地位是马克思主义的根本所在，需要将帝国主义的发展置于资本主义生产方式的结构性危机的趋势下来理解。帕尼奇和金丁则认为，卡利尼科斯陷入了对经典帝国主义论的简单重复，不仅以松散的“地缘政治竞争”概念取代“帝国间的竞争”，而且高估了经济危机对政治稳定性的影响。他们指出，卡利尼科斯产生这种理论倾向的原因在于，没有对全球资本主义中的国家以及国家间关系进行深入的历史唯物主义分析。

This debate focuses on two issues: one is whether to acknowledge the foundational status of the economy, and the other is how to understand the nature and functions of the state. To clarify these two issues, it is necessary to return to the “classical formulation” of historical materialism. The initial form of this formulation is found in *The German Ideology*, co-authored by Marx and Engels. In this work, they expounded the core of their historical theory, namely taking civil society as the foundation of all history and elucidating forms of consciousness from civil society. In the “Preface to *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*,” Marx put forward the “classical formulation” of historical materialism, discussing the composition and relationship between the economic base and the superstructure, and pointing out the determining role of the economic base. However, it must be made clear that historical materialism’s affirmation of the foundational status of the economy does not imply economic reductionism. In the relevant literature, especially in Engels’s later works, it is not difficult to find discussions on the counteractive effect of state power on economic development. In his letter to Conrad Schmidt on October 27, 1890, Engels analyzed the counteractive effect of state power on economic development. He pointed out that state power can either promote or hinder economic development. Engels’s dialectical view reveals the complex interaction between the economic base and the superstructure.

这场争论聚焦于两个问题，一个是是否承认经济的基础地位，另一个是如何理解国家的性质及功能。要澄清这两个问题，有必要回到历史唯物主义的“经典表述”。这一表述的最初形态见于马克思和恩格斯合作撰写的《德意志意识形态》。在这部著作中，他们阐述了他们历史理论的内核，即将市民社会视为整个历史的基础，并从市民社会出发阐明意识形式。在《〈政治经济学批判〉序言》中，马克思提出了历史唯物主义的“经典表述”，论述了经济基础与上层建筑的构成和关系，指明了经济基础的决定性地位。然而，需要明确的是，历史唯物主义对经济基础地位的肯定并不意味着经济还原论。在相关文献，特别是恩格斯的晚期著作中，不难发现关于国家权力对经济发展的反作用的论述。在1890年10月27日给康拉德·施米特的信中，恩格斯分析了国家权力对经济发展的反作用。他指出，国家权力既可以推动经济发展，也可能阻碍经济发展。恩格斯的辩证观点揭示了经济基础与上层建筑的复杂互动。

This theoretical tension continues into the study of imperialism. The analysis of economic and political forces in classical imperialism theory, and the debate over the capital logic of power and the territorial logic of power in new imperialism theory, both attempt to interpret the complex entanglement of capital accumulation and state power. The inevitable theoretical difficulty arising from this is how to use historical materialism to conceptualize and theorize the new stage of capitalism, especially how to define the capital accumulation mechanism and state theory of new imperialism. Callinicos points out: “If there exists a dialectical tension that Harvey considers constitutive of imperialism, then it is necessary for (geo)politics to be granted ‘autonomy,’ and if (geo)politics is granted ‘autonomy,’ then this level requires some kind of theorization, one that both values its specificity and integrates it into a broader explanation of capitalist development.” [13]13 Alex Callinicos, *Imperialism and Global Political Economy*, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009, p. 181. This view explains from a theoretical level why state theory has become a point of contention within new imperialism theory, namely the need to construct a new capitalist state theory that can both reveal the relationship between the logic of capital and the “autonomy” of geopolitics, and properly handle the relationship between the specificity of the new imperialist state and the generality of the capitalist state. At a practical level, changes in the form of the state also highlight the urgency of its theoretical construction. Compared with traditional colonial empires, the mode of domination of new imperialist states relies more on financial hegemony, the military-industrial complex, cultural penetration, and the like, rather than direct territorial occupation. Therefore, a new capitalist state theory needs to be constructed to explain this “deterritorialized” hegemony and “decolonized” empire. Harvey points out: “We need not only a new theory of imperialism to reveal the circumstances of our era, but also a new theory of the capitalist state. We urgently need this theory because the forms and powers of state institutions, as well as what Timothy Mitchell calls the ‘state effect,’ are completely different from what they were thirty years ago.” [14]14 David Harvey, *The New Imperialism*, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 189. Wood, Callinicos, Robinson, Panitch, and Gindin have attempted to explore the state theory of new imperialism from different angles, but have not yet formed a unified paradigm.

这种理论张力延续到了帝国主义研究中，经典帝国主义论对经济力量和政治力量的分析，以及新帝国主义论对权力的资本逻辑和权力的领土逻辑的争论，都在试图诠释资本积累与国家权力的复杂纠缠。由此必然产生的理论难题是，如何运用历史唯物主义对资本主义新阶段进行概念化、理论化的构建，特别是如何界定新帝国主义的资本积累机制及国家理论。卡利尼科斯指出：“如果存在某种哈维所认为的作为帝国主义构成的辩证张力，那么（地缘）政治被赋予‘自主性’就是必要的，而如果（地缘）政治被赋予‘自主性’，那么就需要对这个层面进行某种理论化，既要重视它的特殊性，又要把它融入对资本主义发展的更宏大的解释中。”这一观点从理论层面解释了国家理论何以成为新帝国主义论内部的争论点，即需要构建一种新的资本主义国家理论，既能揭示资本逻辑与地缘政治的“自主性”之间的关系，又能处理好新帝国主义国家的特殊性和资本主义国家的一般性之间的关系。在现实层面，国家形式的变化也凸显了对其进行理论化构建的紧迫性。相较于传统殖民帝国，新帝国主义国家的支配方式更依赖金融霸权、军工复合体、文化渗透等，而非直接的领土占领。因此，需要构建一种新的资本主义国家理论解释这种“去领土化”霸权、“非殖民化”帝国。哈维指出：“我们不仅需要一种新的帝国主义理论来揭示我们的时代环境，也需要一种新的资本主义国家理论。我们迫切地需要这种理论，因为国家制度的形式和权力以及蒂姆·米歇尔所说的‘国家效应’已与30年前的情况完全不同了。”伍德、卡利尼科斯、罗宾逊、帕尼奇和金丁等尝试从不同角度探索新帝国主义的国家理论，但尚未形成统一范式。

Similar theoretical challenges also exist in the reconceptualization of the economic dimension. In terms of re-understanding the mechanism of capital accumulation, Harvey’s concept of “accumulation by dispossession” has had a significant impact. He extends Marx’s theory of primitive accumulation to the present, arguing that the core of imperialist practice is the continuous dispossession of public wealth through new forms such as financialization, privatization, and intellectual property monopolies. In Harvey’s definition, the concept of “accumulation by dispossession” encompasses both traditional means such as the enclosure movement, colonial plunder, the slave trade, usury, and state debt, as well as new mechanisms such as plunder, fraud, and theft through credit systems and financial capital, and the commodification and privatization of intellectual property, patents, licenses, natural resources, cultural forms, and public assets. The neoliberal reforms of the 1970s constitute an important reference for Harvey’s expansion of the concept of “accumulation by dispossession.” Although Harvey’s view reveals the violent and continuous nature of capital accumulation, it has also sparked controversy: supporters argue that this concept reveals the reappearance and evolution of primitive accumulation, while critics criticize its breadth and ambiguity. For example, some scholars point out that because the definition of “accumulation by dispossession” is too broad, it “homogenizes the diverse and complex moments within the economic restructuring of capital and the broader social restructuring of capitalism,” [15]15 See Sam Ashman, “Capitalism, Imperialism and the ‘New’ Theory of Imperialism,” *International Socialism*, No. 2, 2006. confusing the “internal and external relations” of capitalism.

类似的理论挑战也存在于对经济层面的重新概念化。在重新认识资本积累机制方面，哈维提出的“剥夺性积累”引起了较大的影响。他将马克思的原始积累理论拓展到当代，认为帝国主义实践的核心是通过金融化、私有化、知识产权垄断等新形式持续剥夺公共财富。在哈维的界定中，“剥夺性积累”这一概念既涵盖了圈地运动、殖民掠夺、贩卖奴隶、高利贷和国债等传统手段，也包含了以信贷体系和金融资本为手段的掠夺、诈骗和盗窃，以及知识产权、专利权、许可权、自然资源、文化形态、公共资产的商品化和私有化等新机制。20世纪70年代的新自由主义改革构成哈维拓展“剥夺性积累”概念的重要参照。尽管哈维的观点揭示了资本积累的暴力性与延续性，但也引发了争议：赞同者认为这一概念揭示了原始积累的再现和演化，而反对者批评这一概念的宽泛性和模糊性。例如，有学者指出由于“剥夺性积累”的定义过于宽泛，“将资本的经济重构与更广泛的资本主义的社会重构中多元的、复杂的时刻同质化了”，混淆了资本主义的“内部与外部的关系”。

The exploration of new imperialism by foreign left-wing scholars essentially constitutes the contemporary development of historical materialism in the context of globalization. This development is not a simple interpretation of original texts, but a theoretical innovation based on a complex real-world context. Different understandings of historical materialism and social change have given this innovation a diversified character.

国外左翼学者对新帝国主义的探讨本质上构成了全球化语境下历史唯物主义的当代发展。这种发展并不是简单的原典诠释，而是基于复杂现实语境的理论创新。对历史唯物主义和社会变化的不同理解使得这种创新呈现出多样化的特征。

V. Conclusion

五、结语

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the debates among foreign left-wing scholars on the relationship between classical imperialism theory and new imperialism theory, as well as on the research paradigm of critical theory of imperialism, reflect the possible paths and focal issues in constructing a contemporary critical theory of capitalism. These issues involve how to define imperialism and what paradigms and methodologies to adopt in studying imperialism. Looking back at classical imperialism theory, from Hilferding and Luxemburg defining imperialism as a certain policy and political manifestation, to Bukharin and Lenin gradually understanding imperialism as a specific historical stage of capitalism, all emphasized the foundational status of the capitalist economy. Entering the 21st century, foreign left-wing scholars have engaged in theoretical confrontations around classical imperialism theory and its contemporary applicability. The central issue of these confrontations is actually how to construct an analytical framework for the study of capitalism in the era of globalization. In these confrontations, foreign left-wing scholars have adopted diverse research approaches: Harvey, Wood, Callinicos, and others employ a political-economic dual paradigm; Panitch and Gindin emphasize the position of the state in global capitalism; Robinson and others focus on the formation of a transnational state. It is worth noting that these seemingly divergent theoretical paths actually share the same theoretical aspiration: to achieve the innovative development of historical materialism in the context of globalization through a “return to historical materialism.” This relates to a series of questions: “Does historical materialism have any relevance in the age of globalization? What significance does globalization have within the framework of historical materialism? Are the traditional vocabulary of historical materialism—among which concepts such as ‘class,’ ‘state,’ and ‘imperialism’ are particularly prominent—sufficient to understand and change the contemporary social situation? …” [16]16 Ellen Meiksins Wood, “Globalization and the State: Where is the Power of Capital?” in *The Socialist Register 1998: The Communist Manifesto Now*, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998, p. 218. Therefore, the “return to historical materialism” by foreign left-wing scholars is essentially a development of historical materialism in the era of globalization. This process is a theoretical expression of new social realities, and moreover, it points to the thorough transformation of the contemporary capitalist world. From classical imperialism theory to new imperialism theory, it is shown that theoretical continuity and innovation have jointly promoted the vigorous development of historical materialism, providing us with an indispensable analytical framework for understanding and evaluating contemporary capitalism in the era of globalization.

21世纪初以来，国外左翼学者关于经典帝国主义论和新帝国主义论的关系，以及帝国主义批判理论研究范式的争论，反映出构建当代资本主义批判理论的可能性路径和焦点问题。这些问题涉及如何界定帝国主义，以及采用什么样的范式和方法论研究帝国主义等。回溯经典帝国主义论，从希法亭和卢森堡将帝国主义定义为某种政策和政治表现，到布哈林和列宁逐步把帝国主义理解为资本主义的特定历史阶段，都强调了资本主义经济的基础地位。进入21世纪以来，国外左翼学者围绕经典帝国主义论及其当代适用性展开理论交锋，交锋的中心问题实际上是如何构建全球化时代资本主义研究的分析框架。在这场交锋中，国外左翼学者采用多元化的研究进路，哈维、伍德、卡利尼科斯等运用政治—经济二元范式，帕尼奇和金丁等强调全球资本主义中的国家地位，罗宾逊等关注跨国国家的形成。值得注意的是，这些看似分殊的理论路径实则共享着相同的理论诉求：通过“重返历史唯物主义”，在全球化语境中实现历史唯物主义的创新发展。这关联着一系列问题：“在全球化时代，历史唯物主义有什么相关性吗?在历史唯物主义的框架内，全球化具有什么意义?历史唯物主义的传统词汇——其中诸如‘阶级’、‘国家’和‘帝国主义’等概念尤为突出——是否足以理解和改变当代社会状况?……”因此，国外左翼学者对历史唯物主义的“重返”，实质上是在全球化时代对历史唯物主义的发展。这一过程是对新的社会现实的理论表达，更指向对当代资本主义世界的彻底改造。从经典帝国主义论到新帝国主义论，展现出理论的延续和创新共同推动了历史唯物主义的蓬勃发展，为我们在全球化时代理解和研判当代资本主义提供了不可或缺的分析框架。

Online Editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑