The French Empire is high-interest-capitalism, an old colonial power. By 1900, its colonies covered 3.7 million square kilometers, with a population of 56 million. In 1910, domestic investment reached 770 million francs, and foreign investment reached 3.98 billion francs, soaring to 60 billion francs in 1914.
In France, not only large capitalists engaged in usury activities, but small and medium capitalists also participated in high-interest lending by acquiring securities, forming a large parasitic class. The massive export of capital severely affected the development of the national economy; small peasant economies persisted for a long time, and industrial production was mainly composed of small and medium-sized enterprises, leading to backward domestic industry and agriculture.
The living conditions of French workers and peasants are also worse than in other capitalist countries: low wages, long working hours, no labor protections, and heavy tax burdens.
Financial oligarchs appoint pawns under the banner of “socialists” to run the cabinet, deceiving the masses.
After the Franco-Prussian War, the large reparations and territorial losses to Germany hindered the development of French capitalism. Domestic industrial growth was slow, and the monopolist bourgeoisie could only export large amounts of capital abroad to obtain high monopoly profits.
Your answer is too simplistic and does not mention other reasons, such as France being an old imperialist country with accumulated old capital, unwilling to adopt new technologies and update fixed capital because this would devalue its fixed capital. Additionally, France’s industrial structure is inherently distorted due to the persistent small land ownership system, which hinders industrial development. The most powerful bourgeoisie has always been the financial aristocracy, who made their fortunes by usury and exploiting small farmers. The most developed industry in France is luxury goods manufacturing, as it serves to satisfy the interests of the parasitic classes such as the domestic financial aristocracy and landowners. Usury has a long tradition in France, and among the French bourgeoisie, the 200 most powerful families are essentially the financial aristocracy.
You can take a look at the “General History of the World: Modern Part” by Zhou Yiliang to supplement your knowledge of the history of the development of French capitalism. Of course, the drawback of this book is that its class standpoint is not very clear, and the class analysis is sometimes inadequate, because this book was written by reformed old intellectuals and has been adapted; ultimately, the research standpoint is not so revolutionary.
While Russian capitalism was transitioning to imperialism, a large amount of feudal serfdom remnants were preserved in various socio-economic aspects. Peasants still had to perform corvée labor and pay in-kind rent. Workers faced double oppression, making life very difficult.
Power was held by the aristocratic landlord class, and the bourgeoisie had no power and depended on the Tsarist government for survival, making it very weak. The Tsarist government also needed to develop capitalism to promote hegemony, so the two colluded with each other.
Russian imperialism is a militaristic feudal imperialism, aggressively invading and expanding abroad, such as in Central Asia, the Balkans, and China. It also claimed to be a “liberator” and launched wars against Turkey. At the same time, a large number of civil officials controlled all departments of the Bulgarian government. Colonial peoples suffered massacres, had no民族权利, and were not allowed to use their own languages.
The Tsarist regime sought not only to impose heavy taxes domestically but also to borrow heavily abroad; for example, in 1900, Russia’s foreign debt reached 3.966 billion rubles. This was achieved by allowing Britain, France, and other countries to manipulate some of Russia’s most important industrial sectors in exchange for foreign loans.
In summary, Tsarist Russia became the focal point of various contradictions of imperialism. Class contradictions and民族矛盾 (ethnic conflicts) became extremely sharp, making it a weak link in the world imperialist system.
The characteristics of Japanese imperialism lie in its feudal militaristic nature. Japanese capitalism developed relatively late; while capitalist countries like Britain, the United States, France, and Germany had already begun transitioning toward imperialism, Japan was just entering capitalism. Due to the extremely severe remnants of feudalism, the Meiji Restoration was originally led by bourgeois landlords, and those in power were also landlords and feudal warlords headed by the emperor. Japan’s shift toward imperialism relied on dual exploitation of the internal masses through capitalist and feudal methods. Contract labor was very common, and female workers were even allowed to buy and sell labor. Because Japan’s domestic market was small, its aggressiveness was particularly strong. The landlord-warriors built industry (mainly military industry) through the plundered wealth (such as extorting 200 million taels of silver from China via the Treaty of Shimonoseki), accelerating its transition toward imperialism.
The formation of a unified national market in Germany was not achieved through a bottom-up national democratic revolution, but rather through the Prussian dynastic wars from top to bottom. Therefore, the German bourgeoisie was very weak in strength. After the Franco-Prussian War, they used war reparations from France to develop capitalism, catching up with the old imperialist countries in a short period. However, a large amount of land was owned by Junker landlords, who held many positions in state institutions. The emperor’s power was also large, so the monopoly bourgeoisie could only cooperate with the landlord class, implementing a joint dictatorship of the landlord class and monopoly bourgeoisie.
The situation in Russia is similar; the development of Russian capitalism was also driven from top to bottom through serf reform, with remnants of serfdom still very serious, and large amounts of land concentrated in the hands of the landlord class. Therefore, the Russian bourgeoisie was initially weak and reactionary, needing to ally with the Tsarist autocratic government to suppress workers and peasants. The Tsar needed to develop capitalist industry, and the bourgeoisie needed the Tsarist autocracy. Without this, they could not participate in the struggle to carve up the world.
Japan is also similar; it entered the capitalist system from top to bottom through the Meiji Restoration, with significant remnants of feudalism, even in urban capitalism. Politically, landlords and feudal military cliques held the ruling position. To suppress the masses, the zaibatsu (financial magnates) engaged in external aggression and had to establish joint rule with feudal landlords.
In summary, the main path was top-down reform into capitalism, leaving a large amount of feudal remnants. Feudal aristocrats had strong economic and political power. However, feudal aristocrats needed to develop capitalism for external expansion, and the bourgeoisie needed to rely on autocratic government to develop capitalism. This is why a joint dictatorship of feudal aristocrats and monopoly bourgeoisie emerged.
German imperialism is a form of modern large-capitalist technology and highly organized Junker bourgeois imperialism. Monopoly capital is closely linked to remnants of feudalism both politically and economically. It has a strong chauvinistic and militarist nature; Prussian Junker landlords hold a leading position in state institutions and have great influence in rural areas. The government is only responsible to the emperor himself. The monopolist bourgeoisie strives to join the ranks of the aristocracy. Junkers and monopolist bourgeoisie are closely combined, forming so-called Junker bourgeoisie, implementing landlord bourgeois dictatorship, intensifying the exploitation of the working people, fiercely suppressing the workers’ movement, and pursuing imperialist expansion policies. Germany belongs to the emerging imperialist countries; after the Franco-Prussian War, it used France’s territorial cessions and reparations, as well as advanced production technologies, to catch up with and surpass the old capitalist powers Britain and France in a relatively short period. By the time it entered the imperialist stage, Germany’s industrial production had become the largest in Europe. The development of new industries such as black metallurgy machinery manufacturing, electrification, chemistry, and optics was particularly rapid. Therefore, German imperialism demands to compete with the old imperialist powers for the “land under the sun,” and conflicts with the old imperialist powers are especially intense. Domestically, due to the implementation of protective tariffs and continuous inflation, prices keep rising, and the working masses cannot maintain a minimum standard of living, leading to a continuous rise in the workers’ movement. Moreover, during the imperialist period, the boundaries within the German Social Democratic Party between the left, center, and right became increasingly clear. The rise of the workers’ movement pushed the left wing within the party to struggle against right-wing revisionists.
As the economic and political influence of German imperialism developed and expanded after the Second Industrial Revolution, German imperialism not only sought hegemony in Europe but also attempted to re-divide the world’s colonial spheres of influence. In order to counter the increasingly powerful Germany, Britain had to abandon its policy of glorious isolation. After the Russo-Japanese War, Russia’s threat to Britain in the Far East was greatly weakened, and Germany’s activities in the Near East as well as the Baghdad Railway plan directly challenged British and Russian interests.
The First Balkan War was a nationalist liberation war led by the monarchs of the Balkan countries against Turkey. The Second Balkan War was an unjust dynastic war among the Balkan alliance members over the division of territories.
The main contradiction among imperialist countries before World War I was simply the struggle for hegemony. In reality, however, the economic crisis of imperialism forced them to seek colonies and semi-colonies to export capital and industrial goods, and to plunder local raw materials and labor. Therefore, imperialist hegemony involved competing to seize the remaining unpartitioned colonies and semi-colonies in the world or to overthrow the comprador regimes of rivals, thereby expanding their own spheres of influence. This sphere of influence is the manifestation of hegemony.
Britain aims to seize colonies from other countries around the world and establish a “Greater Britain”;
Germany aims to establish a “Greater Germany” including the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Balkan Peninsula, West Asia, the Baltic coast, Scandinavia, Belgium, and part of France;
France wants to first recover Alsace-Lorraine, then occupy the Ruhr region in Germany, and seize Germany’s colonies in Africa;
Tsarist Russia plans to expand aggressively across Eurasia, implement the “Yellow Russia” plan in China, and seize China’s northeast, Xinjiang, Tibet, as well as Mongolia, Korea, and Persia;
The Austro-Hungarian Empire plans to turn Serbia into its vassal and consolidate its rule in the Balkan Peninsula;
Italy plans to establish hegemony in the Mediterranean, demanding to occupy Trieste and Albania, and carve up Asia Minor and the African coast.
Ask @渐晓霜: What kind of positions did the populists maintain in their early activities before the 1980s? What actions did they take? Why was this so?
Ask @火眼: After the populists’ failure to mobilize the peasants, what strategy did they turn to? What was the result of this strategy? How did the populists change afterward?
Ask @annah: What were the populists’ views opposing Marxism? How did Lenin refute them? What is the work by Lenin that crushed the populists?
Ask @暨和: What were Lenin’s activities during his student days? What marked Lenin’s combination of the workers’ movement and Marxism in Russia?
Ask @鞍文燎: When did Lenin establish the Petersburg Workers’ Liberation Struggle Association? What changes did this association undergo afterward? Why?
Ask @十月的风: What kind of people were the legal Marxists? How did Lenin struggle against them?
Ask @ame: How did Economism become popular in Russia? What were their positions? How did Lenin gradually crush the Economists?
Ask @Hughes: Why did the first Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Congress fail to complete the task of party building? How was the real task of party building accomplished?
Ask @luanma: What was the main dispute at the second Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Congress? What were the positions of the two factions? What was the final outcome?
Ask @typhoon: What is the significant historical meaning of Lenin’s victory at the second Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Congress?
Ask @沼泽士兵: After the second Russian Social Democratic Labour Party Congress, what kind of attacks did Lenin face inside and outside the party? How did Lenin crush these attacks?
Ask @fallwind: What issue did Lenin address in his book “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back”?
Between 1894 and 1895, Lenin led many Marxist groups within the Petrograd factories to carry out activities, engaging in political agitation among the workers. From then on, Marxism in Russia combined with the workers’ movement, and the Marxist groups became more consolidated. As a result, Lenin unified all Marxist groups in 1895 and established the Petrograd Workers’ Liberation Struggle Association. Initially, the association explicitly aimed to combine workers’ economic struggles with the political struggle against Tsarist autocracy. However, after about two months, the association was raided by the Tsarist government, and the core members were arrested and imprisoned. Consequently, only some newly joined, idle young people remained in the association, calling themselves the Youth Faction. They seized leadership of the association and turned it into an economic faction organization, advocating that workers only need to fight for economic rights through economic struggles and should not involve themselves in politics, which should be handled by the liberal bourgeoisie. They worship spontaneity and oppose establishing organized, disciplined, and programmatic revolutionary organizations. The reasons for these changes in the association are partly due to internal opportunism within Russia and the influence of the Second International’s revisionism externally, which led to the emergence of a youth faction that worships spontaneity; and partly because the Tsarist government imprisoned or exiled Lenin and other core members, creating conditions for the Youth Faction and others to usurp leadership.
The Mensheviks secretly engaged in factional activities in an attempt to split the party. The Second International revisionists, represented by Kautsky, established the Arbitration Commission, aiming to mediate the ideological struggle between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and achieve unification. Lenin resolutely opposed the interference of Second International revisionists, maintaining the independence and principled stance of the Bolsheviks. He authored the article “Further, Retreat Two Steps,” which elaborated on the development of Marxist party-building theory, emphasizing principles such as strict organization, revolutionary ideological armament, reliance on the masses, and democratic centralism. This work defeated the offensive of revisionists.
The first Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party failed to complete the task of founding the party because, at that time, a revisionist faction—the Economists—had emerged within the workers’ movement. They argued that political struggle was the business of the bourgeoisie and that workers should abandon political struggle, believing that workers only needed to engage in economic struggles with factory owners (hence their name). At that time, Lenin and other old Bolsheviks did not participate in this congress; they had been exiled to Siberia by the Tsar three years earlier. If economicism was not crushed, and these openly anti-Marxist revisionist groups that abandoned the political struggle of the proletariat were not expelled from the workers’ movement, the party could not be founded. “Without ideological unity, organizational unity is meaningless.” Later, Lenin recognized that the Economists were revisionists and, after returning to Russia, founded the Iskra (Spark) newspaper and published articles to criticize economicism, demonstrating the revolutionary leadership qualities that oppose the trend, including many famous quotes. The true task of founding the party was accomplished in 1903 at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, on the basis of Lenin’s struggle to develop Marxism through class struggle, through the fight between revolutionary factions led by Lenin and opportunists.
