Bryan D. Palmer - Capitalism & Colonialism: The Making of Modern Canada 1890-1960

Volume two of Bryan D. Palmer's trilogy on the history of Canada begins where the previous book left off. But, as Palmer immediately notes, Canada on the cusp of the twentieth century "was remarkably different than the disparate collection of British North American colonies" that had come out of the 17th century. Canada was now a fully fledged capitalist nation, with economic crises to prove it, and part of a global capitalist economy. Capitalism was "most assiduously cultivated in the open yeaes of the twentieth century" writes Palmer. The country "took off" economically in the period before 1914 and by every aspect of measurement the economy was growing. New technologies were introduced, whole new industries appeared, and class relations were "reconfigured".

The opening chapters explore this growth in different sectors. This was a period of class struggle from below and above, and one of consolidation of the economy. Palmer writes:

The layers of colonialism in which Canada was richly enveloped grew increasingly complicated, with capital imports rising to £100 million annually in 1911-1913. British capital supplied three-quarters of this influx... securing the loyalty of the Canadian chartered banks"... On the eve of the First World War, 60 per cent of Canada's government debt was held abroad, and servicing this borrowing consumed one-quarter of the country's export earnings.

At the same time the Canadian government was continuing and expanding its colonial control at home. New laws oppressed Indigenous people still further, and "Ottawa also worked diligently to extend the domination of the Dominion into the last frontier of capitalist exansion, an enclve of the preservation of Indigenous ways of life: the resource-rch North." Finally, "francophone Quebec" was further subordinated within the Confederation. There were also significant examples of workers' resistance and organisation in this period. But the key line of development was the increased centralisation and consolidation of capital.

While there were significant economic differences through the Canadian regions, there was a general growth in large corporations such as steel manufacturing, coal and industrial farming. But the wealth from these accrued to a small minority of the population. Hard work by miners, industrial workers and farmers drove capital accumulation, but they were not its main beneficiaries. Take farming. Palmer explains that on the prairies:

It was wheat... that proved the major engine of capital accumulation... the single most important crop enticing homesteaders. They settled on some ninety-nine million acres of land between 1870 and 1927, successfully patenting 58.2 million acres by 1930. Settlers bought more land than they acquired for free through federally overseen pre-emptions, with fifty million acres purchased from the railways, Hudson's Bayt Company and other agents... These lands, traditionally the territory of various First Nations, sustained the wheat economy of the Canadian west. Harvests of the prairies proved a juggernaut of capital formation for the railways and their beneficiaries, the monopolistic grain elevator owners who controlled the sales and distribution of what. Powerful interests like these bled farmers dry.

Such growth required massive numbers of workers. Between 1901 and 1931 Canada's population nearly doubled. Urban centres like Toronto and Vancouver grew at astonishing rates. The immigrants who came arrived from enormously different areas, and experienced appalling racism.

The prejudice and poverty faced by these recent arrivals disfigured Canada, the intolerance they confronted paralleling the marginalisation and discriminatory treatment accorded the country's original colonised peoples. Confederation's economic margins now included First Nations, Métis, Inuit, Québécois, the labouring poor, the immigrant masses, most Maritimers and wage-earning women, whose pay in the 1920s averaged 54-60 per cent that of males.

These immigrants had arrived hopeful of owning and farming land. The Canadian government "extolled the virues of European peasants as the kind of human material best suited to the settlement of the West" but most lacked the experience and resources and instead usually "ended up as itinerant harvesers... peripatetic railroad navvies...miners; or the lowest-paid labourers in industrial factories." 

There was, inevitably, a racist dimension too. These immigrants "became the racialised 'other', scapegoated in the social construction of a Canada htat had to be constantly remade in the image of a British Dominion championed as 'White, forever'."

One of the great strengths of Palmer's histories of Canada is his subtle exploration of the relationship between capital and colonisation. Thus he traces the impacts of capitalism's expansion on the First Nations, Métis and Innuit peoples and its impact on the workers. The growth of new industry, followed by the industrial decline and depopulation of the Maritimes or the expansion of capital and resource extraction into the North and the displacement and genocidal policies against the Innuit. These are handled with care and thought, and never once does Palmer dimminish the horror of what happened to First Nations, the oppressed and exploited. Canada's colonism wasn't just internally. It was central to expansion of the British Empire into the global south: "Sugar refineries in Canada, for instance, were at the centre of capital's expansion in the 1890-1914 years". Imports of sugar from Asia transformed the people and economies of places like Fiji. These were now part of the "sphere of influence" that Canadian capital cultivated. Canadian banks were at the forefront of expansion into South America and the Carribean. 

The middle part of the book covers the Great Depression and the horror experienced by working people in the 1930s, it also covers a great period of resistance. Massive strikes, in particular in the "year of rebellion" 1937, saw millions of workers fighting back over pay and conditions. This also saw an expression electorally with the growth of the Communist Party and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. Palmer traces the evolution of these groups, and their intersection, well. For those on the Canadian left this is probably a well trod path. For most of us outside of Canada it will be very new material. 

Canadian capitalism did not recover until World War Two. Palmer accurately describes this as "capital's saviour". But production of food, weapons and ammunition drove the Canadian economy to new heights, bringing new opportunities for women workers'. Economically it was also transformative. US capitalism spent "nearly $12 billion" in Canada during the war, which "helped keep the wartime domestic economy huming and further solidified the Dominion's integratin into a new continentalism, driven by rising American demand". Uranium mining in Canada also meant the country, and its government, became closely linked to the US atomic bomb programme. Coming out of the War the Canadian government needed to implement a Welfare State - much like in Britain, fear of further workers' rebellion fuelled the belief in reforms to buy off the potential threat. But it is striking to learn that so racist was the Canadian state that the original plans for Welfare did not even feature the poorest Canadian people - the First Nations.

By the end of the period, "obvious voices of anti-capitalism" and anti-colonialism were "quieted" and "in retreat". the left was weaker and the post-war consensous seemed to have gained for the trade union movement "much of what it had long sought to attain". But the 1960s were to be a "decade of tumultuous change and oppositional turmoil" and would see Indigenous movements, those of the oppressed and organised workers, and the left, grow and pose radical challenges. But, argues Palmer, these changes were all rooted in a the longer trajectory of colonialism and capitalism boom and slump across Canada.

This book tells a wonderful, if frustrating, story. In the face of a vicious, settler, state power, working and Indigenous people were sacrified to the interests of capital. Resistance was almost continuous. But with the exception of the period after World War One and the later 1930s, rebellion did not fundamentally challenge capital. Palmer tells the story of the few brave radicals who led that fight, and more emerges in the final period in the third volume. But this reader felt that there were too many missed opportunities for radical resistance.

I enjoyed volume two almost as much as Palmer's first volume. I was surprised at the ommission of two things. One was any mention of the experience of Canadian troops during World War One. I had expected that the slaughter in the trenches would have had a political impact back home, but this was not discussed. Secondly I was surprised that there was little discussion of far-right and Nazi politics in Canada in the 1930s. Was there such a movement like much of the rest of the world? Was there anti-fascist resistance? These omissions aside, Palmer's sweeping history is excellent.

Related Reviews

Palmer - Colonialism & Capitalism: Canada's Origins 1500-1890

Nikolai Bukharin - Imperialism and World Economy

Three great works of Marxism mark the transition from Marx and Engels' work on economics into the modern era. They are Lenin's Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Nikolai Bukharin's Imperialism and World Economy and Rosa Luxemburg's Accumulation of Capital. Each of them was written to attempt to engage with a changing world - one where Great Powers had divided up the world and were clashing with each other for redivision of the spoils.

Most revolutionary socialists have read Lenin's contribution to this. Fewer have read Bukharin's and Luxemburg's. Bukharin's work is a more detailed work that has many overlaps with Lenin's book but develops the points further. It also has an interesting history. Because it was lost to the censor and only recovered after the revolution it is published with an additional chapter that reflects the post-revolutionary hope of the era. Bukharin, as with Lenin, elegantly paints a picture of a transformed world where everything is in flux:

In various ways there thus takes place the trasnfusion of capital from one "national" sphere into the other; there grows the intertwining of "national capitals"; there proceeds the "internationalisation" of capitalism. Capital flows into foreign factories and mines, plantations and railroads, steamship lines and banks; it grows in volume; it sends part of the surplus value "home" where it may begin an independent movement; it accumulates the other part; it wides over and over again the spehere of its application; it creates an ever thickening network of international interdependence.

He continues:

We thus see that the growth of the world economic process having as its basis the growth of productive forces, not only calls forth an intensification of production relations among various countries, not only widens and deepens general capitalist interrelations, but also calls to life new economic formations ,new economiv forms unknown to the past epochs in the history of capitalist development.

These new formations, syndicates and cartels and other such capitalist constructs, signal the emergence of a new order. Bukharin argues that the old world economy could be compared to the structure of a national economy until the late 19th century, but the new economy is marked by the "considerable narrowing [of] the hitherto unhampered 'free play of economic forces'." National economies are now geared towards the international economy, but the global economy is much more than a sum of national economies it is a everchanging, interacting and evolving system. Even if competition was abolished, he argues, in a national economy, there would still be crises because of the international economy.

This, Bukharin argues, is also true of war. War "in capitalist society" is an example of competition, extended to the world economy. "War is an immanent law of a society producing goods under the pressure of the blind laws of a spontaneously developing world market". But, he argues, not one of a sociaet that consciously regulates the process of production and distribution - i.e. socialism.

For Bukharin it is the newness of 20th century capitalism that is remarkable. He describes the changes as "radical" and it is driven by finance capital which has reached "colossal proportions". Banking capital "appears in the role of an organiser of industry". But it is unplanned and disorganised. The growth of the productive forces "clashes with the antagonistic form of distribution and with the disproportion between various parts of capitalist production". It is a profoundly unstable world, without planning or equilibnrium, "hence terrific crises and precipitous changes".

For those reading Imperialism and World Economy in the era of Trump it is worth noting Bukharin's comments on tariffs. These are "partial sorties". In the long run he says, "conflict is solved by the interrelation of... force of arms".

Some of the book takes up political questions. Bukharin points out that pacifists cannot solve war - because of its centrality to the logic of capital. Less convincing his Bukharin's insistance, along with Lenin, that there is an aristocracy of labour in the rich countries that is bought off by the surplus from imperialism. Not least because there is no satisfactory explanation of how this process happens, and the capitalists have never knowingly handed over cash to their workers - however important they are - without serious class struggle.

Also Bukharin fails to foresee what might happen when capitalism has further developed in colonial countries. How could new imperialisms, or sub imperialisms, evolve and challenge the powerful nations. This is a process I would argue that plays a central role in modern political economy. The emergence of China as a new imperialist power is one example. But so are the regional imperialist interests of countries like Israel and Iran. Their interplay with global politics is shaping the modern world.

Overall though, this is a must read for a deeper grasp of the history and development of world capitalism and of Marxist thought on imperialism. Tragically a book written for the early 20th century that is still massively relevant to today.

Related Reviews

Lenin - Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism
Callinicos - Imperialism and Global Political Economy

Christopher Clark - Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World 1848-1849

In January 1848, Francesco Bagnasco, a radical Scilian who believed in the "universal regeneration" of society in the face of inequality, unemployment and hunger, spoke:

The time of useless prayers has passed. The protests, the pleas, the peaceful demonstrations were useless. Fedinand II viewed it all with contempt; and as for us, a free people reduced to chains and misery, will it take us yet longer to regain our legitimate rights? To arms, children of Sicily, to arms! The strength of all is omnipotent: the union of peoples is the downfall of kings. On 12 January, at dawn, the glorious epoch of universal regeneration will begin.

Such sentiments arose in almost every part of Europe in the years 1848-1849. They represented a huge desire for fundamental change. On the one hand their were the poverty stricken masses in town and country, for whom life was unbearable. On the other, there were a newly emergent class of wealthly, liberal bourgeois people for whom the existing order was preventing them engaging in, and expressing, their real desires - the pursuit of wealth. Bagnasco, represented the latter, a class for whom the world was changing, but not fast enough. Liberals imagined a different way of organising society. As Christopher Clark says:

Liberals liked markets. In an era when markets are dominated by mighty global entities like Google and Amazon, it is hard to recapture the subversive magic that still attached to the idea of the market in this era. Markets were not manorial or feudal, they did not represent royal power, they were not ecclesiastical. They were a space of exchange in which individuals could operate - in theory at least - on a more or less level playing field, outside the prescriptions of an arbitary authority.

The quest for a bourgeois capitalist order, was also one that threatened to shatter apart the older order, on every level in which it existed. While the ideas of the bourgeois class were radical, so were those of the lower orders and these ideas radicalised as the masses began to move into action against their rulers. One of the patterns that Christopher Clark describes, which was almost universal to the European revolutions of 1848, was the way in which the initial euphoria of revolution, the unity of classes against common enemies, deteriorated as their contradictory interests emerged from the struggle. One example comes from Paris. There the initial revolution had instituted a Provisional Government for France. The make up of the new assembly was a "bitter disappointment" to the left, and it set about writing a new constitution:

Odilon Barrot, who was a member of the Constitutional Committee, later recalled how the 'fear of social war' left its mark on the drafting of the constitution: ' the agitation that had suffused this society, the exasperation of some, the anxiety of others, did not permit the calm, the coolness of mind required for such a task;. He could not forget, he wrote, how in a the room where the commission was deliberating, the sounds of civil strife could be heard through the windows.

Clarke notes that in this constitution the writers' objective was "not to project the revolution forward into the future, but t capiture it in something cool and inert, conserve a liberal understanding of what had been achieved and thereby prevent further radicalisation."

Clarke's analysis here is not new. The gap between the liberal bourgeoisie's interests and those of the masses was plain at the time, and has much been commentated on. Marx and Engels noted this often in their writing, and indeed - to relate this work to my own recent interests, the whole purpose of Engels' work on the German Peasants' War was to explore why the bourgeosie in Germany in 1848 was so cowardly through contrast with 1525.

There were other factors too. The lack of radical leadership from below often undermined the revolutionary movements. Clark notes how mass demonstrations in Berlin were curtailed by the use of the popular radical orator Friedrich Wilhelm Held, who was chosen at a crucial moment to speak to a revolutionary protest:

Held announced that the demonstration would retrace its steps... The tension in the crowd dissipated. To countermand Held's announcement was impossible - his grip on the crowd too strong. The demonstration was over; people began to drift away. Looking back, Paul Boerner felt that this was the moment when the radical movement in Berlain missed its appointment with history.

Crucailly Clark argues, Held's own motivations matter little: "Whether Held was an agent of some kind or simply changed his mind at the last moment is not important. He was a crucial link in the sequence of that day's events, a link made of capricious and changeable stuff. That a man like him should have found himself in such a position on 14 May 1848 tells us something about the absence of a cohesive radical leadership cadre".

Despite the failure of more strident and throughgoing revolutionary change, 1848 did make massive changes. A space was opened up for capitalist development that pushed aside the older order. Clarke notes that these changes "were a direct consequence of the revolutions. They were only possible because conservative political groups that had previously opposed or resisted them had been pushed away from the centre of power." 

Marxists often point to the way that the capitalist class pretend that revolution played no part in their conquest of power. Clark's book demonstrates the opposite. The centrality of mass revolution to their victory. He also celebrates the role of the masses - without whom the bourgeoise could not make a revolution, but who were universally feared and reviled by the same class. In his own discussion of revolution and counter-revolution in France in 1848, Karl Marx concluded: 

Thus the solution is postponed; the status quo continued; one faction of the party of Order compromised, weakened, made unworkable by the other; the repression of the common enemy, the mass of the nation, extended and exhausted — until the economic relations themselves have again reached the point of development where a new explosion blows into the air all these squabbling parties with their constitutional republic.

These revolutions then, in many senses, remain unfinished, at least for the "mass of the nation". Clarke is right to conclude his book by drawing parallels with more recent, contemporary struggles, and revolutions. In reading of 1848, for instance, it is impossible not to visualise the very similar looking scenes that saw the masses take over squares in cities throughout the Middle East in 2011 - not least Cairo's Tahrir Square or Sudan in 2019.

But, as Charlie Kimber notes in his own review of this superb book, "one key difference from 1848 is that our rulers no longer face a working class that is being born. Instead, they face a global one whose members and dependants make up the majority of society."

The 1848 revolutions remade the world for capitalism. But they also began the process by which the working class became a class for itself.

Clarke's book is extraordinary. Its breadth and attention to detail are phenomenal. More importantly it is extremely readable, and avoids trying to tell the story nation by nation. Instead Clark constructs the story by reference to multiple places, drawing out similarities and differences. He thus avoids repetition and boring the reader. There are plenty of exciting, inspiring moments and Clark has an eye for the unusual and the comic. It is a sweeping history. Clark avoids just focusing on the familiar and talks about the whole geographical breadth of the continent, in all the varied forms revolution manifested. He never fails to neglect wider implications of the struggle - the question of women and gender roles, the emancipationary conclusions that the revolutions had for enslaved people and the differences between town and country. All these aspects deserve a review of their own. Above all Revolutionary Spring is a reminder of what we can achieve when millions of us join together.

Related Reviews

Saville - The Consolidation of the Capitalist State
Mehring - Absolutism & Revolution in Germany 1525-1848
Marx - The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
Davidson - How Revolutionary were the Bourgeois Revolutions
Leipold - Citizen Marx: Republicanism & the formation of Karl Marx's social and political thought
Greene - Communist Insurgent: Blanqui's Politics of Revolution

R.F. Kuang - Katabasis

*** Spoilers ***

Apparently R.F. Kuang explained the origins of her latest novel Katabasis on noting that "academia is hell" and extending this to what if academia was hell. In this sense it is a development of what has come to be known as "Dark Academia", a subset of fantasy novels that deal in horrors, violence and threat in universities. The dark side of academia.

Katabasis begins like many a fantasy novel. The hero, Alice Law, is studying magic under Doctor Jacob Grimes. Grimes is a magical genius. But also a control freak, self obsessed, egotistical monster and a bully. He steals ideas, makes promises that never come to fruition and has a reputation as a someone who is impossible to work for. He is also a serial sexual assaulter, and a key plot point is that Alice has been his victim.

Grimes' two star students, Alice and Peter Murdoch have a difficult relationship with their tutor. Alice is desperate for acknowledgement and praise, Peter is wounded by how he has been betrayed by Grimes. Their own friendship has fallen about as a result of misunderstandings, and lack of communication. Both of them seek revenge and in doing so Grimes is killed in a magical accident while trying to test an idea he has stolen from Peter.

Feeling guilty, but not trusting each other, Alice and Peter head to Hell, to the realm of the dead, to try and rescue Grimes. If nothing else they both need to graduate.

The bulk of the book is set in Hell, with Alice and Peter trying to track down Grimes' shade and return him. They proceed through the various levels that have previously been documented by earlier visitors like Dante, debating philosophical questions as they proceed. Hell is academia. It's outer layers are mirrors of undergraduate life and its inner realms are reflections of the hell of trying to publish, gain recognition and stay ahead.

Katabasis is a strange fantasy. It has been described as a love story. But in many ways it is more a story of revenge. It is also a critical, if somewhat oblique, comment on academia in general, and Oxbridge in particular. Grimes' is the worst you can imagine in an academic, and Alice's tragic experiences with him, and the failures of those around him, are portrayed well. As is the final reckoning.

Conor Kerr - Prairie Edge

Grey Ginther and Ezzy Desjarlais are two Métis cousins living in an old trailer near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Their days are a mix of drinking and endless card games; listless and dull. Grey is a disillusioned environmental and indigenous rights activist, fed up of the corporate NGO lobbyists, and the endless treadmill of well meaning white activists whose trajectory from college to NGO jobs or academia means they never actually engage in meaningful and lasting action. Ezzy is her friend, who survived a succession of foster homes, poverty and state failure - desperately looking for love and hope, yet failing at ever stage.

Grey comes up with a cunning plan. To ramp up activism needs something profoundly different. Rather than protest, they need direct action, and remembering how the bison were taken from indigenous and Métis people she vows to return them to their rightful home - the plains. Even if there are towns and cities in their way. Grey and Ezzy borrow a truck, steal a car and suddenly the news is full of video of bison roaming where they should not. "Let them stay" and "land back" become the chants and demands of citizens.

The bison plan is the back drop to this tale, but the story is really about how the crushing reality of the Canadian state oppresses and exploits people like Ezzy and Grey at every turn. There's little way out, and sooner or later something will (and does) go terribly wrong with the plan. 

The police turn up - all fat and aggressive. To them Métis and indigenous peoples are simply guilty. 

This is a deeply painful novel. It is not without hope - but that lies in the way that ordinary people stand up for each other and resist oppression. Community and family are the only defence again a brutal state, drugs and alcohol, poverty and addiction. But the novel really asks - is this enough? Or can we rewild Canada and other capitalist states to build something different.

Crystal Gail Fraser & Sara Komarnisky - Talk Treaty to Me: Understanding the basics of treaties and land in Canada

I picked up Talk Treaty to Me at a left-wing bookshop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as part of my reading during a trip to Canada this month. Indigenous struggles over land, social and ecological issues have come to the forefront frequently in the last few decades as social movements by Indigenous people have fought to defend and extend their rights, and these have meshed with wider environmental and social struggles. The First Nations people of what is now called Canada have made a global impact with some of their struggles, but there have also been bitter right-wing back lashes against them - including the racist attacks on Mik'maq fishers in Nova Scotia - documented in a book I reviewed recently Contested Waters.

Talk Treaty to Me is not a pure history of the First Nations. Rather, as the title suggests, this is a book that is designed to educate Canadians about the history of the treaties that shape contemporary debates about First Nations' social and political issues. But history cannot be ignored. The history of treaties in Canada includes the history of treaties made between Indigenous people before European settlers arrived. This is important because sometimes there's a crude suggestion that First Nations people could not understand treaties because they had no concept of them. It is true that Europeans arrived with completely different understandings of land ownership and use, commodity exchange and culture. But First Nations people always made treatments. The authors quote Elder Danny Musquq, of the Keeseekoose First Nation:

All of the agreements they [First Nations] have had between one another as peoples and as nations were always based on [land] use - on how they were going to use that land. And.. when... I say... the use of that land, we had agreements between one another, hunting territories that we shared, trapping lands that we shared, gathering lands that we shared, medicinal lands that we shared [sacred lands,... lands that were designated for the shelter and safety of all people.

Crucially these treaties were different to those made with Settlers. One historian Leanne Beasamosake Simpson has described a treaty between two First Nations, which "did not involve interfering with one anothers' sovereignty as nations. It represented harmony and interconnection, as bot parties were to be responsible for taking care of the dish.

The "dish" referenced here, refers to the "Dish with One Spoon" concept, an understanding about how to share land and resources, equitably and sustainable. The authors of this book comment that this agreement is "vastly different from how Canada acts as a treaty partner today".

In my review of Sheldon Krasowski's book No Surrender: The land remains Indigenous I described some of the ways that treaties made by European settlers and the British government were constructed on falsehoods and deliberate subterfuge. Krasowski's book is referred to by Fraser and Komarnisky several times, and they also cover similar ground. These are stories of racism, lies, and deliberate attempts to sideline and undermined Indigenous communities and Nations and take away their land and resources. 

In particular the authors write that the 1876 Indian Act 

Was created to control and oppress Indigenous Peoples. As a mechanism of assimilation and genocide, it controlled movements on and off reserve via a pass systeml it criminalised cultural ceremonies and celebrations; it enfranchised First Nations persons who earned a postsecondary education or joined the miltary; it altered the identities of First Nations women and their children; and it imposed a system of governance for Indigenous Nations radically difrerent from their own systems. The Indian Act, by every means, was designed to obliterate Indigenous cultures, traditions, languages and governance.

This process continued into the 20th century, the authors write about how "Indigenous northerners were not consulted even though their Lands were being used, sold, and exploited by both the federal and territorial governments." A foundational moment for contemporary relations between Settlers and First Nations came in the 1970s when the first modern treaties were signed. This was a period when Indigenous movements were reasserting themselves and fighting to extend their rights at the same time as pushing the boundaries of existing treaties. "At their best", the authors say, more recent treaties, "provide frameworks for the management of Lands, wildlife, resources, and programs and services and ultimately a plan for how Indigenous Peoples and non-Indigenous peoples and our governments will relate to each other." The authors encourage readers living in Canada to find out what treaties cover the areas they live in to understand how their own role in taking these forward.

The problem is that Treaties don't always match up with the interest of government and big business. For instance, the British Crown and then the Canadian state signed treaties that said one thing, but allowed them to institute highly repressive and genocidal policies. This is because First Nations peoples might be talking about "treaty rights" at the same time that the government is thinking about "rule of law". The Indian Act, in many places, "violated the spirit and intent of treaties" causing appalling damage and harm to individuals and communties. Explains that the authors explore include the "Indian Residential Schools" which devastated the lives of young people in an attempt to systematically destroy Indigenous cultures and assimilate people into Settler society. Thousands of lives were lost and there are ongoing generational traumas for many people today. 

These issues matter however not just because individuals and communities need restitution, support and reconcilation. But because solving the legacy of Treaties and the Indian Act and what has happened to First Nations peoples is not just about creating new treaties. What is needed are completely new relations to develop that are based on breaking existing social, political and economic relations. One key example of this is the "Land Back" movement. This means, the authors say, starting a "process of regaining Indigenous sovereignty and political authority over Indigenous lands". Ultimately it means "getting Lands back under the jurisdication of Indigenous people".

Such questions are crucial - but they are a challenge. Increasingly activists and socialists from Settler backgrounds are recognising the need for "Land Back" demands and similar changes. One of the fascinating things about reading Talk Treaty to Me as someone who comes from a former colonial power, but doesn't live in Canada, is how the authors take time to recognise that non-Indigenous readers might find the ideas and language challenging. But this is not just about language. It is also about recognising that settler colonial powers like Canada cannot give "Land Back" without undermining their own right to exist. This is why, as the authors point out, "Canada is more concerned about protecting its statehood, soverignty, and economy than about implementing human rights". Giving "Land Back" or offering proper restitution for past and present genocidal policies would be a challenge to corporations that want to extract resources and wealth from land and people, and undermine Canada's very existance. As the Mohammed Mamdani has written of the US in the context of a discussion on Settler Colonialism:

Engaging with the native question would require questioning the ethics and the politics of the very constitution of the United States of America. It would require rethinking and reconsidering the very political project called the USA. Indeed, it  would call into question the self proclaimed anticolonial identity of the US.

Similar the existence of the Canadian state itself is incompatible with offering genuine restitution to First Nations peoples. Thus the project becomes a revolutionary one - and one that out of necessity needs the unity of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in the struggle against Canada and capitalism. In this process new Treaties will be written, but they will be done in very different contexts, which see all the signaturies fully empowered.

Crystal Gail Fraser's and Sara Komarnisky's book is aimed at a Canadian audience, but it covers material that is relevant to everyone who is fighting for social and environmental justice. It is deliberately challenging to its readers and takes on difficult questions. But it is an engaging and important read. I'm glad I was able to read it during my time visiting Canada and engaging with activists here.

Related Reviews

Krasowski - No Surrender: The land remains Indigenous
Englert - Settler Colonialism: An Introduction
Dunbar-Ortiz - Not A Nation of Immigrants
Mamdani - Neither Settler Nor Native: The making and unmaking of permanent minorities

Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

A Column of Fire is the third book in the Kingsbridge series - Ken Follett's incredible popular novels set around the mythical Cathedral town of Kingsbridge. One of the reasons for their popularity in my opinion is that they focus on the ordinary people of the town, artisans, traders, workers and servants, and their relationships and working life. The first novel, which centred on the building of the cathedral, is particular good in its portrayal of the people who created the building and those who supported them.

A Column of Fire still has Kingsbridge at its heart, and the cathedral is the centrepiece of one or two key events, but this time the book is very different. If the first two novels placed Kingsbridge's inhabitants at the centre of the story around which historical events took place, this one places one or two inhabitants of Kingsbridge, and their families, at the heart of historical events.

This means that the novels scope is much larger, to the detriment of the characters. The novel's principle focus is the life of Ned Willard, whose family are prosperous merchants. At the start of the novel he is returning to Kingsbridge from learning the family business in Antwerp, and is desperately in love with Margery, the daughter of the local Earl. Their romance is stopped by the dynasty building ambitions of her father, and Ned has to leave Kingsbridge to become a courtier working in the service of the new Queen, Elizabeth.

Further tensions arise as Margery is a devout Catholic and Ned is Protestant. Ken Follett here is able to construct the complicated religious conflicts of the era around the tensions between the two. Ned is present at many of the key events of this era, including the Saint Bartholemew massacre, the Armada and so on. While the reason for this is of course his service as a spy for Elizabeth, it's on occasion a little implausible.

The networks of Catholics trying to overthrow Elizabeth are only part of the story. Follett has included other aspects of the period - including the slave trade and international commerce with Spain and the New World. Some of Ned's family become incredibly wealthy, and peripheral characters, such as former slaves are shown to also become rich - after they are liberated. While Follett doesn't downplay the violence of slavery, its a little too much in the background. 

Ned's central role in key historical events allows him to become the modern reader's viewpoint. He's liberal and kind, bemoaning the violence of both sides, while desperately trying to avoid England collapsing into Civil War.

A Column of Fire is an enjoyable read - like the other books its packed with cliff-hangers, sex and violence. It's a decent holiday read and should be enjoyed on that basis.

Related Reviews

Follett - World Without End
Follett - The Pillars of the Earth

Donald A. Bowman - My Battle of the Atlantic

The corvette convoy escort ships from World War II have gained a remarkable amount of fame for a small ship that was designed to fill a military gap. As the submarine war against Allied shipping escalated in the first years of the war, convoy protection became an urgent requirement. Yet no ships existed to fill this role, and navies had little experience, despite similar events in the First War. The corvette was created to fill the gap, and almost 300 were built through the war on both sides of the Atlantic. 

The corvette is famous because it is the centerpiece of Nicholas Monsarsat's novel The Cruel Sea, and the subsequent film. Monsarrat also wrote a biographical work on his experience on the little ships. Monsarrat served in the Royal Navy, but corvettes were also used by the Canadian Navy as a key part of their commitment to the Allied war effort. Donald A. Bowman served on HMCS Edmunston escorting convoys to and fro across the dangerous Atlantic. This short biographical account of his experiences begins with his early training, and follows him through the war until HMCS Edmunston is decommissioned. Bowman was on the ship for almost its entire service life. The ship thus takes on a personality of its own.

Bowman's experiences are typical of many servicement. Hours of cold, discomfort and boredom, interpersed with moments of terror. But like any other disperate group of people forced together to work as a team, he also recounts the occasional fun and laughter. Interestingly though, he makes the point, that he never saw an enemy - alive or dead - through the war. Notably though he points out that this is the reason he volunteered. By doing so he could chose the service to be in, and this meant he could avoid the army and having to bayonet people or live in trenches. The shadow of World War One hung over his generation.

Bowman's book is very candid. He describes his sweet and lengthy marriage, and his honeymoon,cut short by the demands of the Navy, after just a couple of days. But readers will really want to know about the time on the ship. This is usually discomfort. The ships had "an open bridge... watchkeepers exposed to the weather" food was terrible:

By the fifth day at sea, bread was mouldy. The galley could not cope with baking bread for ninety-six crew. Hardtack biscuits were availale, but found few takers. A menu staple was "British Bangers" otherwise known as sausages.

The ship was crowded. Ninety-six crew in a space intended for sixty-five. And it was shared by lots of rats and cockroaches.

The corvette HMCS Sackville in Halifax, Nova Scotia

There's plenty here about life at sea. Refuelling, anti-submarine tactics and the stress of convoys at night. If that was it there would still be much to reward those interested in Naval warfare. But Bowman is equally candid about the stress and stress of life on the ship. His final chapters detail the suffering he experienced from what is now called PTSD. Googling Bowman's life beyond the book you can see the stories he tells here and how they continue to affect him. This is especially true of Charlie, a fellow trainee, he met after the war whose life was destroyed by his experiences in the war. Bowman's trauma comes in part from the loss of confidence he says he experienced as a result of taking off the uniform, which removed his sense of place in society. He also suffered terribly from the after affects of brain and hearing caused by the explosions from the "hedgehog" anti-submarine weapon. But it is actually the horror of what Charlie experienced that remains with Bowman, and every Remembrance Day "the futility of war visit my mind all day and late into the night, as I remember Charlie". Those looking for a sanitised miltiary adventure will not find it here, and nor should they.

This short book is thus much more than a memoir. It's an attempt to understand the war from the perspective of someone who was only a small cog. It's fascinating and when I visit the last corvette, HMCS Sackville in a few days time, I hope to see HMCS Edmunston's flag that Donald A. Bowman donated in memory of his friends and comrades.

Related Reviews

Rayner - Escort
Monsarrat - Three Corvettes
Monsarrat - The Cruel Sea
Woodman - The Real Cruel Sea: The Merchant Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic 1939-1943
Lund & Ludlam - PQ17: Convoy to Hell

Hossam El-Hamalawy - Counter-Revolution in Egypt: Sisi's new republic

The Egyptian Revolution of 2011, was perhaps the important event of the 'Arab Spring'. It was a seminal moment for me, and a generation of activists who saw Revolution on the TV and social media on a nightly basis. I, like many other activists, followed events closely. The fall of the dictator Hosni Mubarak was a joyous day.

Hossam El-Hamalawy was an activist, socialist and journalist during those days. This, his analysis of the Egyptian state's evolution and the change and continuity it experienced during and after the Revolution is based on close study of events and documents, including leaked papers, and interviews. Some of it, including references to the imprisonment of activists and events during the Revolution is based on his own experiences.

Friedrich Engels' described the state as a collection of "special bodies of armed men" whose position seeks to defend the status quo, and expand capital's interests. This is nowhere more clear than in Egypt. In the decades before the Revolution the Egypt state had a huge, and overlapping, network of organisations, police, army, informers, spies and agents who watched, punished and restricted anyone expressing dissent. This included trade unionists, socialists, human rights campaigners and Muslim activists who questioned or challenged the existing setup. At the same time, Mubarak was a master at using the state against itself to prevent any threat to his position- giving its leading figures overlapping mandates, turning favourites against each other, bolstering one organisation against another, carefully manipulating the system to protect his position.

In February 2011 the Egyptian military deposed Mubarak. They did this under pressure from below and to try and limit the revolution. El-Hamalawy argues that we cannot see this event as part of a disguised plot by the generals to give themselves power through a coup even thoug this is what happened in July 2013 when Sisi took power from th elected President Morsi. El-Hamalawy argues:

While it is impossible to know every general's thinking, informed accounts suggest the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces aimed for a quick end to the uprising, a return to normality and troop withdrawl. One general explained the priority was to 'restrain the unrelenting revolutionary impulse, so that it does not smite the state's military, security, and economic apparatuses.

Crucially, says El-Hamalawy, "the generals were eager to transfer power to an elected [civilian] government as long as their interests were protected." This is further confirmed by a US State Department report that said the Army preferred "after the Mubarak experience" a situation like in Turkey, were "the army mainstains its status... but stays in its barracks under a democratic order"and is the "guarantor of democracy".

No doubt the military wanted a say in events. But they were not, at that stage, trying to dominate. What changed? Here the importance is the old saying that "Revolution is not an event, but a process". Morsi, who replaced Mubarak, was unable to hold back or end the Revolution. In fact, as El-Hamalawy says, his election became a focus for further radical demands. 

The coup that Sisi led in 2013 was a response to the ongoing revolution, not the revolution per se. But it was, from the generals point of view, a necessary one. El-Hamalawy writes that "by the Spring of 2013, the country had become ungovernable". Industrial disputes were escalating and the capitalist class were "abandoning" Morsi after ongoing "mass protests". It was, a classic moment when the working classes were no longer willing to be governed in the older way, and the ruling classes were unable to govern in the old way.

Post coup Egypt demonstrates a strengthening of the state in both its size and its scope. The military is more powerful, and has managed to displace other forces such as the police as the chief instrument of control. The military have also extended their roots further into Egyptian society. Military capitalism, writes El-Hamalawy, "expanded massively in scale and scope after the coup":

From about $300 million in the early 1980s, the post-coup military's civilian involvement - via debt-financed projects run directly by the army or in partnership with local and international capial - rose to $200 billion over five years... this equalled two-thirds of GDP. Civilian employment in such ventures also grew from about two million in December 2016 to five million by September 2019.

He continues:

The repressive apparatus generals, with the military at the centre, have become predatory elites who sometimes cooperate with the civilian bourgeoisie but also seize their capital by force. 

Repression, punishment and violence against dissenters has reached new levels. The Egyptian state is building some of the largest prisons on the planet, and modelling them on US prisons. Sisi's government has placed itself at the heart of every Egyptian cultural and political institution - from soap operas to mosque sermons. It is difficult to be optimistic about the situation in Egypt in the short term, though El-Hamalawy finds evidence for the "slow revival of dissent" and occasional strikes and protests. More importantly he notes that Eygptian society is also under enormous strain - not least from the global context of Trump and Israel's War on Iran and genocide against the politicians. These tensions are reflected within the state itself and El-Hamalawy notes that "cracks in authoritarian security coalitions rarely stay small".

Any hope we have for a renewed mass struggle will lie in the growth of confidence from below and the breaking open of disagreement within the state. For those studying Egypt Hossam El-Hamalawy's book is a must read. Despite at times the detail being a little overwhelming the book gives a clear picture of the way that Sisi's current government rests on a seemingly powerful, but inherently unstable, state-machine. There's much here on the specifics of Egypt. But the analysis will be useful for everyone trying to understand tensions in other states globally.

Related Reviews

Shenker - The Egyptians: A Radical Story
Alexander & Bassiouny - Bread, Freedom, Social Justice: Workers & the Egyptian Revolution
Alexander - 'Revolution is the Choice of the People': Crisis & Revolt in the Middle East & North Africa
El-Mahdi & Marfleet - Egypt: The Moment of Change
Ayeb & Bush - Food Insecurity & Revolution in the Middle East & North Africa

John Foot - Blood and Power: The rise and fall of Italian fascism

The rise of global far-right and fascist parties and movements is something of great concern to working people. It is, perhaps, the most dangerous time that the left has faced since the 1930s. While fascists and right-wingers have evolved and changed, as this penetrating article by Richard Donnelly shows, their core purpose remains intact. They aim for the complete destruction of democratic structures and the left, while using radical, right-wing, rhetoric to gain support through a critique of the system.

In organising to stop the right activists should learn from the past. Two strands of fascism dominated European politics. One of these was Hitler's Nazis in Germany. The other was Mussolini's fascists in Italy. The latter is not discussed as often as the former, so John Foot's Blood and Power is an important read.  Foot begins:

Italy invented fascism. Out of the chaos of the First World War, in which nearly 600,00 Italian soldiers lost their lives, a new movement emerged which preached hatred for politicians and love for the fatherland. Fascists embraced violence, both in their language and on their streets.

The violence was needed. In the early 1920s the myriad of local fascist leaders out of whome Mussolini was to emerge was the sole leader faced a powerful foe - the working class movement and mass socialist organisations. As Foot says, the fascists were "overshadowed" by a "socialism uprising" at the end of World War One. One cannot downplay the scale or significance of the Italian workers' movement in this phase. The opening chapters of Foot's book are a sweeping, but powerful and inspiring account of a working class in open and confident confrontation with the state.

While Italian fascism was nationalist and racist, and later embraced antisemitism, it's core ideology was one of counter-revolution and patriotism. It was the perceived threat (even after the struggle had receded) from the workers' movement that gave Mussolini's fascists a chance to organise and a ideology to coalesce around. Italian fascism cannot be understood without seeing the centrality of counter-revolutionary politics. In 1914, for instance, the northern Italian city of Ravenna had been the centre of a major workers' revolt against World War One. The story itself is inspiring. But in July 1922 it was the scene of a brutal counter-revolutionary strike by the fascists:

Thousands of armed blackshirts descended on the city... The 'march on Ravenna' was carried out like a military invasion. It took place out in the open, during the day, and was accompanised by a selective purge - the victims being socialists, republicans and trade unionists... At least nine people were killed in Ravenna alone... but the attacks ranged across a vast area.

By the summer in Ravenna and Cremona, Ferrara, Bologna and countless other places, the fascists squads were in control, and "the state, police prefects, army and carrabinieri were all reduced to the role of onlookers, and often took sides, providing logistical assistance to the violent gangs".

The speed at which fascist gangs did defeat democracy and the left is breathtaking. In city after city, town after town, village after village fascist gangs smashed, murdered and broke local and regional organisations of trade unions and socialists, democratic organisations and elected bodies. It was systematic. One thing that should be recognised by all activists today, is that democratic organisation in any form - whether it was local councils or national government, was in no way a barrier to the fascists. Their deployment of extreme violence at the slightest provocation (and usually with no provocation at all) saw democratic institutions fall almost instantly. It seems incredible, but democracy as a set of ideas and institutions could not (and often did not try) to stop fascism. Foot writes:

Local democratic institutions fell, one by one, to fascist pressure. Forty [fascist] councillors had been elected to the provincial administration of Cremona... in May 1922. But this formal, democratic procedure was completely ignored by the local fascists. They did not recognise elections. In that same month, local fascist leader... Roberto Farinacci, insisted that he be allowed to speak as the 'forty-first councillor'. Farinacci had not even been a candidate in the elections... When asked who had elected him, he replied, 'I elected mysefl'. It was the last meeting of that provincial council.

He concludes "Election results and democracy had come up against fascist violence and the latter had won".

This begs the question, could the fascists have been stopped. There's no doubt that the left could and done so. Tom Behan's remarkable book The Resistable Rise of Mussolini shows how this happed in one location. The key was left unity and militant mass mobilisation. Certainly there was resistance and the fascists were held back temporarily in places. But there was not enough. One problem was clearly that the left (in a broad sense) did not understand that everyone was threatened. Too many liberals and moderates thought the fascists were only targetting the revolutionary left, but "moderates were often targeted in the same way, and with even more violence, than those on the far left". Tragically, in a number of key cases, such as when the fascists took out the left stronghold Bologna in November 1920, the leader of the radical left, the Mayor Ercole Bucco, backed down from armed defence, despite having a massive majority in the city. Foot concludes:

Bucco's actions that night also seemed to confirm the overall historical judgement on maximalism. They talked the talk, but were incapable of organising a real revolution. Local fascists on the other hand, were emboldened. 

Time and again the left was to fail. In January 1921 the Socialist Party left split, and the Italian Communist Party walked out. Foot regards this as a mistake. He says that "at a time of mass fascist violence directed against socialists, the main political organisations... divided into two, weakened any sense of opposition or even defence". This was, of course, a dangerous time. The trick would have been if the Communist Party had been able to respond in a way that would have built left unity in an anti-fascist alliance while maintaining independence. This failed to happen, and probably it was too late after January 1921. Had the CP prepared the ground by organising like this, the split could have been much more productive in terms of anti-fascist mobilisations. I was reminded of Clara Zetkin's analysis of fascism in Italy:

Fascism... is not at all the revenge of the bourgeoisie against the militant uprising of the proletariat. In historical terms, viewed objectively, fascism arrives much more as punishment because the proletariat has not carried and driven forward the revolution that began in Russia.  

At the start of this review I mentioned the ideology of Italian fascism. It is notable that while the fascists were appalling racists, many Jewish people were members. Mussolini's alliance with Hitler and his adoption of a vicious antisemitism shocked them. Italian fascism was not more benign than in Germany. Jewish people were hounded, murdered, arrested and lost everything. Many were sent to Concentration Camps, particularly later in the war. Foot's analysis of fascism in power is an important counter to those today who argue that Mussolini was not as vicious. The Italian fascist state was a violent, repressive and murderous entity - and its violence extended into Africa with the occupation of Ethiopia.

Nonetheless fascism in Italy was weak. It seemed extremely powerful, but the contradictions of economic and imperilaist policies undermined its position. By the time it had entered the war, the longer anti-fascist and anti-war traditions of the working class were beginning to make themselves felt. When Mussolini's regime eventually fell, it was a surprisingly quick series of events. This period, and the subsequent German take over of Italy, is well told by Foot.

Foot's book concludes with an analysis of Italian fascism in the context of contemporary Italian politics. It is clear that the failure of the Italian state to properly come to terms with, or confront, the legacy of Italian fascism - including its failure to prosecute or challenge many of its key figures - has left a belief that Mussolini's time was "wonderful". Foot's expose reminds us that it was for a few people - those who were frightened by the rise of a powerful workers' movement. But the reality for millions was the opposite. 

It is an excellent (and extremely readable) account of a period of history we ought to study more. I would have liked more accounts of anti-fascist resistance and further analysis of how the left could have stopped fascism. Nonetheless this is a very useful read.

Related Reviews

Zetkin - Fighting Fascism: How to struggle and how to win
Paxton - The Anatomy of Fascism
Trotsky - The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany
Sparrow - Fascists Among Us: Online hate and the Christchurch Massacre

Lis Angus - That Other Family

How would you react if suddenly, out of the blue, you discovered that everything you were certain about your parents was untrue? This is what happens to Julie Walker in Lis Angus' latest thriller. Julie lives a happy life as the mother of three teenage kids, happily maried to husband Matt, with a decent job at Ottawa's main public library. One day she meets Frances Boyle at work. Frances brings with her some photos of her family and there in the middle, unmistakably is Julie's father. It turns out that Julie's beloved father had two entirely separate families.

For most people this would be a shattering revelation. Frances wants to meet Julie's mother - to her, she's the other woman. With Julie's and Frances' father dead, only her mother can offer an explanation to both women. Before Frances can meet her though, Julie heads out to talk to her mum. To her surprise, when she tries to gently break the news, Julie's mum knows all about the other family. Shock piles on shock for Julie. How could these secrets have been kept quiet for so long. Then her mum spills the beans. The other family is no ordinary family. They're part of a major criminal gang. The sort of criminals bound by honour and committed to revenge. Had they known of the other family the lives of Julie's mum and dad would have been worthless.

Despite some waryness from Julie, Frances bonds with her and her family. Julie's worries seem to disappear. Then, one early morning while Julie's family is out, their house explodes.

So begins Julie's quest for the truth. She's desperate to protect her family. But every turn she's met with official disbelief - even Matt isn't sure things are real. As the threats get closer again, Julie's faced with betrayal and violence from an unknown enemy. Why are the Walkers' being targetted? More importantly, who is targetting them?

Lis Angus is a thriller writer based in Ontario. That Other Family is her second novel, and it is full of delightful twists and turns, tension and a genuinely original plot. The novel is set in an area that Lis knows well. Her acknowledgements include a thanks to an Ottawan librarian for showing her around the library which features in the book! But the landscape and the small towns and villages around the city are clearly drawn from personal knowledge. It makes for an even more realistic story.

That Other Family is a tight piece of writing that lovers of thrillers will enjoy. But there is no morose detective solving the crime, no muscley heroes despatching the bad guys. Instead there's a mother fighting for her family and that's the best sort of hero.

Related Reviews

Macleod - No Great Mischief
Hammett - The Thin Man
Matsumoto - Tokyo Express
Burnet - His Bloody Project: Documents relating to the case of Roderick Macrae

Alistair Macleod - No Great Mischief

Preparing for a trip to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton one is struck how the interconnected history of Indigenous people and immigrants remain central to the region, and indeed the formation of modern Canada as a whole. Alistair Macleod's No Great Mischief focuses on the immigrant experience, those who left Scotland to settle in Nova Scotia, to work its land and mines and build a better life. It is a sweeping history of shared identity and the challenges of building a new life.

The novel begins however, in the modern era, with Alexander MacDonald, a successful dentist, visiting his alcoholic, elder brother Calum. Through a series of flashbacks we begin to construct their shared history, the tragedies that have left the MacDonad children orphans, and the struggles they have fought in the Uranium mines and the fields of Canada. Tragedies outnumber the good times. These are lives, like most immigrants, of long days of hard work, of low pay and accidents. Their are good times, often fuelled by music, dance, poetry and drinking. But while the flashbacks return as far back as 1779 when the first MacDonalds fled Scotland to settle, it is perhaps only Alexander who has broken free of the endless cycle of poverty and death.

Immigrant identity looms everywhere over the novel. Strangers who share the characteristic red hair of the MacDonalds, and claim heritage to the original clann Chalum Ruaidh, stop each other in the street to bond over shared history and family. It's a fierce defensive mechanism that brings conflict with other immigrants groups in the mines and the fields. It creates a culture that pervades contemporary Nova Scotia in many different ways. 

The book is hard to characterise. It's focus on groups in the rugged landscape means that the place itself is part of the story. The rocky coasts and barren landscape. There is, for me, a frustrating lack of presence of Indigenous people whose culture would have been in conflict with the immigrant experience. Perhaps the story would have benefited from inclusion of some of the great working class struggles that Nova Scotia has seen - particularly in the mines. But this is a celebration of brotherhood and solidarity in other ways, the fight to preserve identity and to stand true to who you are. Its a lovely book that will linger as I explore Cape Breton.

V.I. Lenin - Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism

Lenin's short book on Imperialism is perhaps the best known of his extensive writings. So well known, in fact, that the edition I've just read is number 96 of the Penguin "Great Ideas" series. Make of that what you will. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism remains a key reference point because of the continuation of imperialism itself. It is a succinct presentation and defence of the Marxist understanding of Imperialism, defended by Lenin principly (and deliberately) through reference to bourgeois commentators and statistical sources and defended by Lenin from critiques on the left, most prominently Karl Kautsky.

The book is itself limited, or rather it is very much of its time. Lenin acknowledged this because he was writing for the censor. Written in 1916 it needed to bypass Tsarist censorship and thus Lenin's conclusions and language are deliberately mitigated. Michael Kidron, his his own discussion of Lenin's work noted more critically that "have all been lost sight of in an uncritical, almost universal, acceptance of its central themes. This is all the more strange since much of what he analysed has clearly either gone or become much less important than in his day."

Kidron goes on to make some sharp criticisms of Lenin's work. Recognising it as a brilliant piece of revolutionary work at the time, but acknowleding that it has its limits and is very much of its time. Lenin himself acknowledges this in one of the prefaces written after the Revolution when he notes that the book was limited by lack of research material while writing in exile. Kidron's criticisms focus on the changing role of banks and finance capital, which was central to Lenin's analysis and he argues, a over generalisation from the German economic situation. The changing importance of capital export from developed economies to the developing world is also something noted by Kidron.

These criticisms remain important and Marxist theorists such as Alex Callinicos have continued to develop the theory of imperialism for a new years, 60 years after Kidron's critique and over a century since Lenin's. Nonetheless Lenin's book remains crucial to understanding modern imperialism because it offers a Marxist account of the interaction between capitalist development and imperialist structure. Lenin argues that his left critics, such as Kautsky continually misunderstand imperialism prescisely because of their neglect for context.

So what does Lenin argue? Imperialism, says Lenin, arises out of a stage in capitalist development when monopoly capitalism (existence of gigantic firms that have swallowed up most, or all, of their competitors) comes to dominant and can obtain massive profits from exporting capital into delveloping countries. This is faciliated, Lenin argues, when banks have reached such proportions that they control finance capital and can deploy it to further their own interests and those of other capitalists. This then goes further, as Lenin writes, "the 'personal union' between the banks and industry is completed by the 'personal union' between both and the state."

This union between capital and the state means that the state itself can and must intervene in the interest of its own national capital in the world. While this can lead to war, Lenin also highlights that imperialism is more than war. It is the intervention of the state in trade, economic relations and colonial development, in the interests of its capital. Two countries, he writes

England and France are the oldest capitalist countries, and... possess the most colonies; the other two, the United States and Germany, are the front rank as regards rapidty of development the degree of extension of capitalist monopolies in industry. Together these four countries own 479,000,000,00 francs... nearly 80 percent of the world's financial capital. Thus... the whole world is more or less the debtor to and tributary of these four international banker countries, the four 'pillars' of world finance capital.

Such a relationship rests on the ability of the state to deploy military power if required, as Thomas Friedman famously said in 1999:

The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

It is this analysis that makes Lenin's work such a crucial starting point for anyone trying to analyse the modern world. Think of US intervention in the Middle East, or Russia and Ukraine's war. We cannot understand these without understanding the "economic essence of imperialism", to use Lenin's words. Take Ukrain and Russia. Russian aggression began the conflict, but it was Nato and Western interests attempt to hold back Russia's economic interests that identify the conflict as a proxy imperialist one. 

But there are aspects to contemporary imperialism that remain absent from Lenin's book. One of these is the question of "sub imperialism", those nations who have broken from colonial domination and now exert their own economic and political interests, sometimes militarily. Israel in the wider Middle East, or Iran and UAE in Syria and Sudan. Lenin's work is dominated by an attempt to explain World War One and link this understanding to a fight against "opportunists" whose siding with their nation state had so badly damaged the socialist movement. Nonetheless, understanding how the development of capital in post-colonial countries and regions has led to sub-imperialist clashes, hinges on the same recognition as Lenin developed in understanding the rise of the Great Powers in the colonial era. If Lenin's work doesn't anticipate these developments, it does, at every stage recognise that colonialism needed to be resisted by those workers and peasants in colonial states. Had he lived to see this era, he would no doubt have analysed it as succinctly and clearly as he does in this work.

Related Reviews

Lenin - The Development of Capitalism in Russia
Lenin - The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution 1905-1907
Lenin - Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky
Lenin - Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?
Callinicos - Imperialism and Global Political Economy

V.I. Lenin - The Development of Capitalism in Russia

First published in 1899 with a new edition in 1908, Lenin's The Development of Capitalism in Russia is a systematic exploration of the Russian economy at the start of the century. It is based on an extremely detailed reading of official studies and statistics for the Russian economy, something that can prove daunting to the reader as Lenin repeatedly cites figures for machinery, land, farms, workers and almost every aspect of the economy. Lenin is challenging those, particularly the Russian radical Narodniks, who were arguing that Russia was not capitalist, or could not be capitalist. Instead Lenin deploys arsenals of statistics to prove quite the opposite. Russia was seeing the rapid development of capitalism in every part of the economy and those parts of the economy that were organised in older ways, were being squeezed by new markets, trade with the cities and production for profit.

One of the things that Lenin is keen to argue for, is the progressive nature of capitalist relations over those that preceed this. This theme runs through the book. For instance, in discussing the migration of labour around Russia aslabrouers seek work and better wages he writes:

Like the diversion of the population from agriculture to the towns, non-agricultural migration is a progressive phenomenon. It tears the population out of the neglected backward, history-forgotten remote spots and draws them into the whirlpool of modern social life. It increases literacy among the population, heightens their understanding, and gives them civilised habits and requirements.

Lenin cites studies and statistics to back up these claims. His argument is not just, however, that capitalist relations improve the lives and conditions (and outlook) of the producers, but also that the capitalist mode of production is an advance on the old feudal order, improving output, quality and developing the means of production rapidly. He thus rails against those, such as the Narodniks, who argue that capitalism is not a development, but rather a worsening of the situation for ordinary producers. They celebrate the older social relations, the small production units, the family farms and manufacturers, failing to recognise the historic significance of the emergence of capitalism out of feudalism. Lenin writes:

[The Narodnik economists] deny the progressive nature of capitalism in Russia, pointing to the fact that in agriculture our entrepreneurs readily resort to labour-service and in industry to the distribution of home work and that in mining they seek to secure the tying down of the worker, legislative prohibition of competition by small establishments, etc., etc. The illogicality of such arguments and their flagrant distortion of historical perspective are glaring. Whence, indeed, does it follow that the efforts of our entrepreneurs to utilise the advantages of pre-capitalist methods of production should be charged to our capitalism, and not to those survivals of the past which retard the development of capitalism and which in many cases are preserved by force of law?

He continues:

Should we not... be surprised at the fact that, under the circumstances, there are people who are capable of idealising the pre-capitalist economic order in Russia, and who shut their eyes to the most urgent and pressing necessity of abolishing all obsolete institutions that hinder the development of capitalism.

This is not to say that Lenin ignores the way that capitalism exploits working people. While arguing that "the drawing of women and juveniles into production is, at bottom, progressive" he continues that "the capitalist factory places these categories of the working population in particularly hard conditions" and argues for legislation that will reduce hours of work, improve conditions and so on. But he is very clear that it would be wrong to argue for the banning of women and young people from working in factories. The reason is, he argues, that the entry of these sections of the population into industry is smashing apart the old patriarchal order:

By destroying the old patriarchal isolation of these categories of the population who formerly never emerged from the narrow circle of domestic, family relationships, by drawing them into direct participation in social produciton, large-scale machine industry stimulates their development and increases their independence, in other words, creates conditions of life that are incomparably superior to the patriarch immobility of pre-capitalist relations.

It is remarkable to see how Lenin understands these dynamics, celebrating the shattering of old social relations and the emergence of new relations as capitalism develops new towns, new technology and draws millions into new forms of production.

Lenin tracks the way this takes place, first noting how emerging capitalist relations in the countryside have created stratas among the peasantry, the richer ones taking more land and beginning to employ other peasants as workers, then expanding their interests into other forms of production. He writes:

The separation of industry from agriculture takes place in connection with the differentiation of the peasantry, and does so by different paths at the two poles of the countryside: the wrll-to-do minority open industrial establishments, enlarge them improve their farming methods, hire farm labourers to till the land, devote and increasing part of the year to industry and... find it more convenient to separate their industrial from their agricultural undertakings.

Lenin emphasises the importance of the parallel processes of the "depeasantising" of the peasantry as labowners move from "labour-service" to wage labour, together with the transition of agriculture "into commodity production". This was the start, but it is inseparable from the development of capitalist industrial production. The parallels with the development of capitalism in England as analysed by Marx, are clear for all to see.

Lenin also follows Marx by noting that in addition to capitalism's exploitation of workers, it also impacts other relations. Here, for instance, Lenin discusses how the relationship between agriculture and industry could be mutually beneficial:

The growth of agricultural technical trades is extremely important as regards the development of capitalism. Firstly, this growth represents one of the forms of the development of commercial farming, and is, moreover, the form that shows most vividly the conversion of agriculture into a branch of industry of capitalist society. Secondly, the development of the technical processing of agricultural produce is usually connected intimately with technical progress in agriculture: on the one hand, the very production of the raw material for processing often necessitates agricultural improvement (the planting of root-crops, for example); on the other hand, the waste products of the processing are frequently utilised in agriculture, thus increasing its effectiveness and restoring, at least in some measure, the equilibrium, the interdependence, between agriculture and industry, the disturbance of which constitutes one of the most profound contradictions of capitalism.

Marx's writing on the "metabolic rift" between human society and nature, emerged from his critique of capitalist agriculture, and here Lenin shows his awareness of this, through a recognition that a rational use of the by-products of food processing could be used to offset one of capitalism's most profound contradictions.

In mentioning Marx, we should finish of this review by noting that Lenin's work (like Marx's Capital) has little to say about socialism. This is because Lenin, again like Marx, is engaged in a project of understanding capitalism in order to progress the radical and revolutionary movement against it. The Development of Capitalism in Russia is in effect a polemic against those who fail to grasp either the development of capitalism itself in that country or its historical significance. 

Lenin's sharp awareness of the development and growth of the working class in rural and urban areas is a recognition in the emergence of a force in Russia that could challenge both capitalism and the remnants of the old order. A few years after the completion of the first edition of this book, that working class would explode onto Russia's historical stage in the revolution of 1905, the dress rehearsal for the revolution of 1917. Lenin would further develop these ideas in his articles on the agrarian programme for the left.

Few today read The Development of Capitalism in Russia. This is a shame. It is a book that has perhaps been unduly neglected for Marxists studying the development of capitalism. Much of the material here has clear parallels with the emergence of capitalism in Europe. The book is, in places, a difficult read - mostly because Lenin backs up every single argument with multiple statistics and figures. Some of the editions of this work have some beautiful pull outs of tables, and facsimilies of Lenin's original drafts. The figures however should not deter the reader. There's much of interest here.

Related Reviews

Lenin - The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution 1905-1907
Lenin - Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky
Lenin - Will the Bolsheviks Maintain Power?