Historically, the communist movement has always given considerable importance to anti-colonial movements, with particular regard to their potential anti-imperialist charge. However, some basic principles have over the course of fifty years been bastardised, so it is necessary to hammer home the old points, first of all by trying to clarify the crucial point that concerns and will especially concern the proletarian movement on the eve of and during the world communist revolution. The question is: in what sense should one speak of the revolutionary function of anti-colonial movements? What is ultimately the characteristic feature of the revolution, when vast mass movements not exclusively proletarian break the established order?

That the question is far from clear is demonstrated by the fact that not only the parties more or less linked to the various imperialist churches, but even self-styled revolutionary and even communist parties and movements are losing their bearings, and not only in the face of genuinely proletarian movements, such as the Palestinian one, at least in a significant part of it, but even in the face of the great uproar caused by Khomeinism, about which, stammering, they even go so far as to invoke the ‘Revolution’, ending up transforming this powerful concept and, even before that, historical fact, which only incorrupt Marxism can frame, into an undifferentiated jelly in which Arafat or, depending on preference, Habbash, or even Gaddafi or Lech Walesa can stand alongside Khomeini.

It is therefore necessary to return to the origins, clarifying some fundamental points regarding the revolutionary function of anti-colonial movements.

The imperialist phase, unlike colonialism proper – which, according to Lenin, ended before the first great war – is characterised above all by the export of capital. Imperialist metropolises, large financial concentrations, no longer find it possible to invest the large masses of money-capital accumulated in productive activities in the metropolises: not even the outlet of arms production nor the frenzied production of investment goods at accelerated rates is sufficient; it is necessary to export the capital itself to underdeveloped countries. The ideal would be continuous war, if it did not necessarily result in political instability: with it in fact, the goal of employing significant amounts of capital to produce goods and weapons that would be systematically destroyed would be achieved; it would be the most congenial way to realise surplus value. In interwar periods, the residual surplus of capital can only be exported. In backward countries, among other things, the existence of cheap labour is functional to a sustained demand for capital with consequent high interest rates.

These two tendencies of Capital are therefore complementary and correspond to the two bourgeois visions of the developed-underdeveloped countries relationship: the reactionary one, favouring the continuous use of military force, and the reformist one, favouring the development of trade. The difficulty with the reformist tendency lies precisely in the extreme ease with which the domestic market in backward countries becomes saturated: the limit is that of indebtedness, beyond which it becomes impossible to realise the enormous quantity of profits which, having to be reinvested for the most part, find an objective limit in the narrowness of domestic markets, primarily the agricultural market. This is why, despite the ‘goodwill’ of capitalists to ‘help’ underdeveloped countries, capital surpluses always end up returning to the imperialist metropolises.

In underdeveloped countries, the influx of imperialist capital performs the same function as usury and merchant capital did in the late Middle Ages, at the beginning of the capitalist era: it accelerates the dissolution of old forms of property (especially landed property) and therefore of old relations of production, favouring the formation of the specifically capitalist mode of production. Money-Capital is not, in fact, a specific mode of production; it thrives on the basis of every mode of production that has existed so far but, by disrupting the old forms of property, it accelerates the development of new modes of production.

Backward countries, therefore, to quote a classic statement by Marx, see in developed countries the image of their future. The fully capitalist mode of production is in fact spreading across the planet at a dizzying pace, driven by the need for imperialist profits. If in Europe capitalism took several centuries to establish on the basis of old relations of production (roughly, from the 14th to the 18th century), in Russia it took much less time, and in Asia, Africa, and Latin America even less time.

The export of capital is therefore at the root of the upheaval of archaic relations of production in the colonies. Here, the function of the local bourgeoisie, and especially the commercial bourgeoisie, is to a large extent a parasitic function and totally subservient to imperial interests. Only the peasantry (despite belonging to the bourgeois class) is, in certain circumstances, capable of carrying out a notable revolutionary and therefore anti-imperialist function, in that it manages to call into question at least one of the forms of property: landed property.

Referring back to Lenin in this regard is extremely important:

‘Marx goes on to say: “That is why in theory the radical bourgeois arrives at the repudiation of private landed property (...) In practice, however, he lacks courage, since the attack on one form of property, private property in relation to the conditions of labour, would be very dangerous for the other form. Moreover, the bourgeois has territorialised himself” (‘Theories of Surplus Value’). ‘Marx does not mention here, as an obstacle to the achievement of nationalisation, the undeveloped state of capitalism in agriculture. He mentions two other obstacles (...) First obstacle: the radical bourgeois lacks the courage to attack private landed property owing to the danger of a socialist attack on all private property, i.e., the danger of a socialist revolution. ‘Second obstacle: “The bourgeois has territorialised himself”. Evidently, what Marx has in mind is that the bourgeois mode of production has already entrenched itself in private landed property, i.e., that this private property has become far more bourgeois than feudal. When the bourgeoisie, as a class, has already become bound up with landed property on a broad, predominating scale, has already “territorialised itself”, “settled on the land”, fully subordinated landed property to itself, then a genuine social movement of the bourgeoisie in favour of nationalisation is impossible (...) ‘It is not a question of “nuances” (...) but of the basic view as to which classes are capable of being the driving force of the Russian revolution. Voluntarily or involuntarily, Plekhanov and the Mensheviks are inevitably falling into a position of opportunist support to the bourgeoisie, for they fail to grasp the counter-revolutionary nature of the bourgeoisie in a peasant bourgeois revolution (...) We have a “radical bourgeois” in Russia who has not yet “territorialised” himself, who cannot, at present, fear a proletarian “attack”. That radical bourgeois is the Russian peasant’ (‘The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy’, November-December 1907, Works, Volume XIII, pp. 304-335).

It is not, therefore, a question of denying the possibility of development in underdeveloped countries even in the present era, a development which, moreover, is before our very eyes, but of affirming that this development is, on the one hand, capitalist development and, on the other, can take place in two very distinct ways: 1) through the imperialism–non-revolutionary national classes alliance (ranging, depending on the case, from the old landed aristocracies up to the modern industrial bourgeoisies); 2) or through the revolutionary international proletariat–revolutionary anti-imperialist national movements alliance.

Since the defeat suffered by the international proletariat in the period 1919–1926, the second possibility is lacking one of the elements of the alliance, namely the revolutionary international proletariat, at least until the class struggle resumes in the Western metropolises. This however does not lead to the negation of the historical perspective, which indeed remains the only one capable of defeating imperialism. However, given the current situation of absolute subjugation of the Western proletariat to imperialism, we must affirm that any possible nationalist proletarian-peasant movement will inevitably be stifled due to the absence of the proletarian movement in the metropolises, since the revolutionary solution to local issues is indissolubly linked to the international situation.

On the other hand, and even more so, we can only applaud any movement by underdeveloped countries that upsets the current imperialist balance, not because we can expect any revolutionary solution, either locally or internationally, at least in the short term, but because any disturbance of the balance can only accelerate the general crisis in current relations among imperialist states.

The dissolution of old forms of property creates the conditions – with the ruin of small individual producers and, above all, of the small peasants – for anti-colonial liberation movements.

It would be a grave mistake to seek the social base of such movements in the national bourgeoisie, or even in the industrial bourgeoisie, first of all because the few local industries are a direct emanation of imperialist capital – the local industrialists are often mere executors of orders coming from imperialist headquarters – secondly because they see the enemy in the urban proletariat and not in the large imperialist groups. It is the small peasant, violently defrauded of his own rudimentary means of production, exploited by the mechanisms of the market and of ground rent, who can constitute a social base and, under certain conditions, a revolutionary one.

The industrial and commercial bourgeoisie had, in fact, already ceased to play a revolutionary role in the very bourgeois revolutions of the twentieth century, beginning with the Russian Revolution. From this it must therefore be concluded that, except for the particular study of class relations in individual underdeveloped areas, it is possible even in the current era for a vast anti-imperialist and revolutionary movement to arise only to the extent that there exists a strong peasant movement that is able to make the nationalisation of land its central demand and is also willing to fight for a political power capable of satisfying this demand.

In an article dated 15 July 1912, entitled ‘Democracy and Narodism in China’, Lenin, commenting on the work of the Chinese revolutionary democratic movement and in particular on Sun Yat-sen, says that it is a truly revolutionary movement and figure, above all because ‘[it] does not cling to maintenance and restoration of the past’. (Compare this assessment with... Khomeini). Lenin goes on to reiterate the above concepts, stating that, unlike in Europe, there still exists a section of the bourgeoisie in Asia that can carry out a historically revolutionary work, and it is the peasant. Alongside the peasant is the intellectual, liberal bourgeoisie, representative of the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie, whose representatives ‘are above all capable of treachery’. On the basis of the peasantry, a movement can even arise in China which, although being nothing more than reactionary socialism from a Marxist point of view, lays the foundations for a profound transformation of property ownership and thus for the elimination of at least feudal exploitation, through the measure of nationalisation, which therefore represents a very important yardstick in general because it is truly the only one capable of breaking definitively with the old forms of property.

In the theses of Baku and the Second Congress of the Communist International, it was possible to write repeatedly, without risking being considered visionary, given that the proletarian and communist movement was a powerful reality, that ‘the real strength of the liberation movements in the colonies is no longer confined to the narrow circle of bourgeois-democratic nationalists’, but that it had to be placed in the strength of the world proletarian and communist movement. And this is a central thesis that the Left reaffirms in particular both in the retreat of the world communist revolution and in its absence and the absolute predominance of opportunism. In the text: ‘Communism and the National Question’, published in Prometeo in 1924, we read:

‘The Communist International’s political thesis on how the global communist proletariat, and its first state, should direct the rebellious movement of the colonies and of the lesser peoples against the metropolises of capitalism, appears, therefore, as the outcome of a vast examination of the situation, and of an evaluation of the revolutionary process which is totally in keeping with our Marxist programme. This serves to sharply distinguish it from the bourgeois-opportunist proposition according to which the resolution of national problems has to be “prioritised” before it is possible to talk of class struggle, the consequence of which is that the national principle can be used to justify class collaboration, both in the backward countries and those of advanced capitalism, whenever national integrity and liberty is reckoned to be in danger. The communist method is not so trivial as to say: communists must oppose the nationalist tendency everywhere and at all times. This would be meaningless and would be merely a “metaphysical” negation of the bourgeois criterion. The Communist method counters it “dialectically”, that is, in order to evaluate and resolve the national question it sets out from the class factors. Support for the colonial movements, for example, smacks much less of class collaboration, when – at the same time as recommending the autonomous and independent development of the communist party in the colonies, so it is to ready to surpass its momentary allies, with an independent work of ideological and organisational formation – support for the rebellious movements in the colonies is above all required from the communist parties of the metropolises (...) ‘Communists utilise forces whose aim is to break the patronage of the great States over the backward and colonial countries, because they consider it possible to overturn these fortresses of the bourgeoisie and to entrust to the socialist proletariat of the more advanced countries the historical task of driving the process of modernisation of the economy of the backward countries forward at an accelerated pace; not by exploiting them, but by pressing for the emancipation of the local workers from both internal and foreign exploitation’.

In ‘Racial Pressure from the Peasantry, Class Pressure from Coloured Peoples’, published in Il Programma Comunista, no. 14, 1953, we read:

‘Even before relations of modern class struggle have matured in non-white countries, demands arise that can only be resolved through insurrectionary struggle and the defeat of global imperialism. When these two conditions are fully met, the struggle can be unleashed in the era of the struggle for proletarian revolution in the metropolises, even if locally it takes on the appearance not of a class struggle, but of a conflict of race and nationality’.

In the work on ‘Agrarian Question in China,’ published in Il Programma Comunista, no. 22, 1962, we read:

‘Like those who followed it over time, the Chinese example shows that there can be no agrarian programme without a class party of the proletariat, and this is because the agrarian question, where it still arises in revolutionary terms, is not a problem of land division or even collectivisation, but is intimately linked to the development of capitalism and its internal antagonisms: its solution therefore lies with the international proletariat and not with parties which, calling themselves parties of the whole people, do nothing but administer misery in the name of International Capital’.

This obviously does not mean devaluing the results of the Chinese revolution or other anti-colonial revolutions of the second post-war period, which are in any case positive in that they are elements of disturbance in the imperialist balance, but rather to the assertion that backward countries cannot hope to resolve issues relating to their development in a revolutionary manner, except within the framework of their alliance with the revolutionary proletariat worldwide, which must also constitute the global leadership of the anti-imperialist struggle.