Anti-imperialism: The Leninist Legacy and the Fate of World Revolution

Jeremy  Friedman; Peter  Rutland

Article | Slavic Review

Anti-imperialism: The Leninist Legacy and the Fate of World Revolution

Abstract

The most important of Lenin’s writings was, arguably, Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism. That work shifted the focus from workers’ struggles within one country to the dynamics of capitalism as a global system. The Leninist project thereby inextricably linked the causes of economic justice and national liberation, a fateful step in light of the transformation of the world wrought by decolonization. As capitalism stumbles through yet another global crisis today, what parts of Lenin’s fevered vision remain relevant 100 years later?

Keywords: Economic Systems; Global Range; History;

Format: Print

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Friedman, Jeremy, and Peter Rutland. "Anti-imperialism: The Leninist Legacy and the Fate of World Revolution." Special Issue on 1917–2017, The Russian Revolution a Hundred Years Later. Slavic Review 76, no. 3 (Fall 2017): 591–599.

After five centuries of colonialism, four decades of civil war, an extended experiment with Marxism-Leninism, and nearly four decades of rule by a single man, José Eduardo Dos Santos, Angola finally has a chance to realize its enormous economic potential. A country blessed with enormous resources of oil, gold, and diamonds, it also has some of the most fertile remaining untilled land in Africa. However, since the end of fighting in 2002, Angola’s vast wealth has been squandered by a small elite tied to the single party that has ruled the country since independence, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). In a country with a per capita GDP of over $4,000, the vast majority of the population subsists on less than $2 per day, and little investment has been made in infrastructure, education, and healthcare. Can the country’s—and the MPLA’s—new president, João Lourenço, implement the necessary reforms to unlock Angola’s economic potential, or will the existing power structure prevent the sort of change that is required if Angola’s people are to finally see the benefits of independence?

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Anti-imperialism: The Leninist Legacy and the Fate of World Revolution

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