This interview is an episode of The Socialist Program with Brian Becker, a podcast providing news and views about the world for those who want to change it. You can follow the show on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Today’s episode is the second in a multi-part series on Lenin’s theory of imperialism and how his ideas apply to the modern day struggle against war and empire. Brian Becker and Walter Smolarek discuss how nearly the entire globe was divided up by the imperialist powers by the end of the 19th century as part of the expand-or-die nature of the capitalist system. The imperialists then turned to catastrophic world war as the only available means to grow their empire. But by the middle of the 20th century, it became clear that this had led to the rise of a bloc of socialist states that threatened the existence of capitalism itself. Inter-imperialist competition took a backseat as a new era of global class war began. These concepts are covered in detail in the book “Imperialism in the 21st Century: Updating Lenin’s Theory a Century Later” published by Liberation Media.
