Not robber but robbed

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AFTER having the privilege oi a third long letter in Socialist Organiser, Stan Crooke still avoids explaining his original position to is What does sub-imperialism mean scientifically?

Instead, he defends his malogy between Argentina zad Russia, and holds Lenin responsible for his own confusion on imperialism and particularly on Russian imperialism.

For Lenin it was not simpły territorial claims or petty i investments that defined a country as imperLenin explained imperialas ... monopolistic capitalism. Every cartel, trust, syndicate, every big bank is a monopoly. Super-profit has not disappeared, i still remains. The exploiation by one privileged. inancially rich country of all the others remains and has become more intense.

Four rich countries "A handful of rich countries - there are only four of them, if we are to speak of independent, and really large, gigantic, "modern" wealth - England, France, the United States and Germany have developed monopoly • in vast proportions, they obtain super profits amounting to hundreds of millions, even billions. They ride on the backs" of hundreds and hundreds of millions of foreign populations and they fight among each other for the division of the particularly rich, particularly fat and particularly easy spoils.

"This is the economic and political essence of imperialism..."

On the question of Russia (which is the most confusing issue for Stan Crooke) Lenin says.

"Monopoly is enjoyed by the finance capital not of one, but of certain, though only a very tew Great Powers. (In Japan and Russia the monopoly of military power, vast territories, or special facilities for robbing other peoples, China, etc. partly supplements, partly takes the place of, the monopoly of modern;, up-to-date finance capital).

Argentina does not possess "gigantic" "modern wealth" nor does it possess "monopoly of milities or facilities for remition.

other peoples or nations; instead Argentina itself has been robbed for decades by the few privileged imperialist nations.

In the imperialist epoch "the exploitation of classes was supplemented and its potency increased by the exploitation of nations.

is exploited Russia was one of these privileged, (more correctly que to its backwardness "less privileged") imperialist countries and was exploiting other nations; in contrast Argentina is a country exploited as a nation by imperialisen.

That is why Stan Crooke's analogy is false to the core, confused, and leads him into terribly wrong conclusions.

JACK JOHNSON, London

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Socialist Organiser no.97 August 26 1982