Military-Feudal Imperialism

Term used by Lenin after summarizing Russian imperialism’s dual characteristics of monopoly and feudalism as well as complicated contradictions.

As a part of the world system, Russia had its own characteristics. Since the abolition of serfdom in 1861, Russian capitalism had developed rapidly and the production and capital in the industry had shown a concentration trend. In 1900, five major oil companies in Baku controlled 42.6% of the country’s oil production; seven major iron plants in southern Russia controlled 57% of the country’s pig iron output; the metal selling syndicate set up in 1902 controlled 80% of the country’s metallurgical industry; the Donetsk coal selling syndicate set up in 1904 controlled 75% of the country’s coal production; and the train carriage manufacturing syndicate established in the same year almost monopolized the production of all train carriages in the country, thus free competition capitalism moved towards monopoly.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Russia’s political and economic development became more complex. Russian imperialism became a combination of monopoly capitalism and remnants of feudal serfdom. Since Tsarist autocracy was its political backbone, Lenin called it “military-feudal imperialism”. The dual characteristics of monopoly and feudalism of Russian imperialism reflected the extremely complicated contradictions in the Russian society at that time. Economically, there were contradictions between the remnants of serfdom and the development of capitalism, as well as contradictions between the rapidly developing social productive forces and the capitalist production relations; politically, Russia faced contradictions between the people of all ethnic groups and the Tsar’s autocratic system, between peasants and landlords, between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the oppressed ethnic groups in the country and the Great Russian chauvinism, between Russia’s military feudal imperialism and foreign imperialism, etc. Russia became the focus of all contradictions that imperialism faced at that time. While the contradictions were increasingly intensified, Russia first faced the task of bourgeois democratic revolution. How to secure the final victory of the proletarian revolution through carrying out the bourgeois democratic revolution in the weakest link of the imperialist rule chain was the first and foremost problem to be solved via combining Marxism with the reality of the Russian revolution.