Articles

Neo-Colonialism: The New Order of Imperialist Control
Shankar Das

The second half of the last century was full of events and a very significant period as well. The remarkable advancement that the international proletariat could bring about in the first part of the twentieth century could not be maintained in the second part when the class struggle intensified much more. When the capitalist roaders could seize the state power first in Russia and then in China too and subsequently captured parties shining with the glory of many past struggles, the capitalist class became overzealous to proclaim that socialism an effective alternative to capitalism. The alternative of capitalism is capitalism itself. On the other hand the world proletariat has been searching the cause of the defeat in order to explore the guideline to advance anew. Analysis of concrete situation is naturally an important task in accomplishing that. This is all the more true when we find that serious changes have taken place in the global economy and politics since the Second World War (WW II), imperialism—the enemy of the world people –has made changes in the mode of its rule and aggression and had been continuously doing so. Yet the larger section of the left forces, maintaining indifference to all these changes, is keeping themselves confined within the old obsolete concepts. In such an atmosphere, a comprehensive assessment of the concrete situation turns out to be the need of the hour. This is the context when we attempt to discuss the question of neo-colonialism. The reason is, neo-colonialism not only points to the characteristics of the state and society of countries like ours, it also indicates the changed global strategy of imperialism and the politics and economy followed by it.
Indirect Rule,  Indirect Control
Neo-colonialism means a particular kind of colonialism different in character from the former kind of colonialism rule. The British rule in India or the rule of various imperialist powers in different countries at that time was older kind of imperialist rule that was associated with direct capture of foreign lands, direct ruling through physical presence in the subjugated countries, etc. But after the WWII a new situation emerged worldwide. Liberation struggles running in different countries to get the imperialist fetters smashed, intensified. The working class and the communist parties began to play important roles in the liberation struggles. The thunder of Russian revolution of 1917 had by this time accelerated the birth and development of Communist parties in different countries. Now started establishing the rule of Communist parties over a vast area of the world. In international arena, the contradiction between imperialism and socialism had been growing sharp and decisive and the balance of force in this contradiction was gradually changing in favour of socialism. At the same time we notice some changes in the world capitalist economy in this period. Though the capitalist economy attacked by the great depression of the 1930’s had the survival through the Second World War, it was forced to make some changes in its internal structure that became characteristic feature for the next 30 or 40 years. Thus the post-war situation was different from the pre-war situation. The captains of imperialism could readily realize that the character of their rule must be changed in this new situation in order to continue their hegemony. 
One thing must be made clear at this point. That is, the liberation struggles running in countries at that time played important role to set forth the necessity of changing the system of ruling before the imperialist powers. The history of freedom movement of our country also witnesses the same. ‘Freedom’ was no gift of the British imperialists to the people of our county. It was rather for the purpose of pacifying the tremendous current of freedom struggle, to deviate it from uprooting the imperialist powers that imperialism had to take recourse to a different way of world system. In addition to this, some other compulsions were there too behind such measures that we have already mentioned. This is that new world system which is known as neo-colonialism.
Imperialism was successful in its bid through securing the comprador leadership of the freedom movements fully under its control. Consequently they could establish an indirect rule dependent on imperialism by the compradors in the erstwhile colonies under indirect control of imperialism. It should be kept in mind that such indirect control of imperialism appeared before the WWII too. Such indirect control of imperialism in that period was known in the communist circle as semi-colonial rule. In the document ‘The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party’ prepared by some leading members of the Communist Party of China under the leadership of Mao Tse-Tung in Yenan in December 1939, the then China was identified as a colonial, semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. Some regions of China at that time was under direct imperialist clutches, Some portion was under indirect rule with the help of the compradors. This indirectly controlled region was termed by the Chinese party as ‘semi-colonial’. Some features of this indirect control were identified in that document, such as—1) forcing China to sign numerous unequal treaties by which they have acquired the right to station land and sea forces and exercise consular jurisdiction in China;  2) gaining control of all the important trading ports in China by these unequal treaties; 3) gaining control of China’s customs, foreign trade and communications (sea, land, inland water and air); 4) dumping their goods in China, 5) capturing its agricultural system; 6) operating many enterprises in both light and heavy industry in China in order to utilize her raw materials, minerals and cheap labour and thereby directly exerting economic pressure on China’s national industry and obstruct the development of her productive forces; 7)  monopolizing China’s banking and finance and maintaining the control by extending loans to the Chinese government; 8) supplying the reactionary government with large quantities of munitions and a host of military advisers, in order to keep the warlords fighting among themselves and to suppress the Chinese people; 9) along with all these, waging cultural aggression in order to run the whole affair smoothly.
One finds that the features of indirect imperialist control in semi-colonial regions identified in the document of the Communist Party of China have resemblance with those of the control and rule of post-WWII new world order we deem appropriate to term as ‘neo-colonialism’. It is quite reasonable to think that the international communist movement had never paid due importance to consider this question. It is true that in one of the documents (Apologists of Neo-colonialism) prepared by the CPC during the Great Debate with the Russian party, it was mentioned that after the WWII imperialism has taken recourse to a kind of indirect ruling system instead of its direct rule, and the system was recognized as neo-colonialism. Despite initiating the task, the Chinese party failed to develop it due to the complexity of the contemporary situation and it was abandoned midway. Hindrances developed in the way of proper understanding of ‘neo-colonialism’ due to theoretical weakness of the communist movement and indirect rule of imperialism of the present time too was termed as semi-colonial system. Naturally, therefore, discussions go on most of the time taking the two terms ‘semi-colonial’ and ‘neo-colonial’ synonymous resulting in incompleteness in the analysis of the concrete situation of the present period. Consequently, serious errors take place off and on in deciding friends and enemies and in evolving methods and means of struggle.
Anyway, we will enter here on the concrete discussion over the question we are going to raise now, i.e., why are we identifying the post-WWII indirect control of imperialism as ‘neo-colonial’ instead of ‘semi-colonial’. In our consideration, along with retaining the erstwhile features of indirect rule in the new order, some such features have been attributed that that ascribes a completely different character of the worldwide imperialist control. These new features were not present or, rather, it was not possible to appear in the pre-WWII indirect rule of imperialism i.e. the semi-feudal system. Before we enter the features that needs a separate discussion, it is necessary to understand first the positional difference of the two systems—semi-colonial and neo-colonial. In the past, it was found that direct colonial system through direct presence in foreign territories and indirect semi-colonial rule to run alongside. The places where and when imperialism was forced to lodge indirect semi-colonial system instead of direct rule that compulsion was of regional character. But a fundamental change took place in the world situation after WWII to what the freedom movements continuing in different countries had an important contribution. The above mentioned Chinese document too recognized that new situation. There it is stated, “While revolution in the colonies and semi-colonies suffered serious setbacks after World War I owing to suppression by the imperialists and their lackeys, the situation after World War II is fundamentally different.” (emphasis ours) So, after the war a fundamental change took place and the freedom movements made important contribution to bring about that change. What was mentioned in that document regarding this change is that the people of Asia, Africa and the Latin America had uprooted the former colonial rule of imperialist powers and it is now impossible for imperialism to revert to the erstwhile system of ruling. It has to resort to a new kind of colonial system. Thus it is no more possible to find the simultaneous existence of semi-colonial indirect rule and direct colonial rule like the earlier times. This means, while indirect rule and control was a regional compulsion behind ruling, the worldwide freedom movements have transformed it to a worldwide universal compulsion. This is the very first new feature of the neo-colonial system that should be borne in mind.
The system of neo-colonial indirect rule has revealed itself as much more sly. As one of the most important component of this sly system of control, parliamentary democracy has been developed. Firstly, we should take into account that the neo-colonial system is not identical in all countries. Initially it was dependent on establishing puppet governments. The above Chinese document has indicated this during the Great Debate. It states, “The imperialists headed by the United States enslave or control the colonial countries and countries which have already declared their independence by organizing military blocs, setting up military bases, establishing “federations” or “communities”, and fostering puppet regimes.” But they who refuse to consider neo-colonialism as a developing system and in comprehending it confine themselves to what was said in the above document might have the idea that neo-colonialism implies essentially a puppet government. But the reality is somewhat otherwise. The neo-colonial system has matured to more and more cunning and tricky with every passing day. In the post-WWII situation this control has been established flexibly in accordance with the level of development of democratic systems and institutions in an un-yielding way. As a result, the neo-colonial system has appeared in different forms in different countries. Somewhere it is in the form of puppet government, somewhere in the form of debt-trap, or somewhere hoisting the flag of democracy—it has been perpetuating its control, although parliamentary democratic system has proved to be the most favourable on for the neo-colonial control. The power and efficiency to mould parliamentary democratic system as a tool of control is one of the features of neo-colonial system that was absent in the former semi-colonial system. On democracy in the erstwhile colonial system it is said in ‘The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party’: “Our enemies have made peaceful activity impossible for the Chinese people and have deprived them of all political freedom and democratic rights.” But in the new situation after WWII, when direct colonial rule became obsolete and the system of indirect control of imperialism appeared as neo-colonialism, a fractured and dwarf democracy was established in countries through parliamentary systems based on universal franchise which was presented before the people as the acme of ruling system and state structure. This is what was initiated in our country as ‘Government of India Rule’. After 1947, such a parliamentary structure came out that was reckoned as the highest policy making body by the oppressed people. When on the one hand bourgeoisie claims regarding parliamentary structure had been gaining justification to the people through the first Communist government in Kerala in 1957, fall of Indira-regime in 1977 and victory of Left Front Government in West Bengal and Tripura, the Communist circle of India on the other hand failed to comprehend the pseudo-democratic elegance of this fractured form of parliamentary democracy under neo-colonial system. One section disparaged the imperialist control and exaggerated the strength of parliamentary system of India. The CPI (M) leadership has fallen in the ditch of establishing socialism in the way of reforms within the present bourgeoisie state structure. On the other side, an enormous section of Communist revolutionaries have grasped imperialist control in a blunt way taking it in the erstwhile semi-colonial structure. They failed to understand the pseudo-democratic form of parliamentary democracy forged with neo-colonial slyness and consequently did not take into account the strength of parliamentary democracy. They had either elevated the question of election boycott to one of principle or despite participating in elections, shunned the tactical path of forming a revolutionary government through election. They have limited themselves in copying the tactics followed by the Bolsheviks in an institution like the Duma of Russia in the beginning of the last century where there was neither universal franchise nor was the power to legislate, and labeled it as the precise revolutionary path. As a result, the limitations of the parliamentary democratic system did not come out clearly to the working class and the toiling masses. All the efforts of the bourgeoisie to glorify the parliamentary system achieved more justification.
Economic Reforms:  Rule of Capital
The question of the role of imperialism in under developed countries has never been studied in the Communist circle in India in accordance with the concrete analysis of the situation. This, like many other questions, has been confined to a stereotype discussion. As a result, the role this one of the most important features of neo-colonial system could play in the theoretical development of Marxism-Leninism could not have been materialized. The truth the British rule in India brings forth is that as imperialism on the one hand preserved feudalism in colonies, throttled the development of national capital and industries, it has on the other hand been compelled to develop a capitalism dependent on imperialism. As imperialism of the twentieth century is the highest stage of capitalism, it needs no mention that the important role of capital must be served through its activities. Be it imperialist capital, nonetheless being capital it must, alongside preserving feudalism, develop a kind of capitalism. This is beyond their will, rather a compulsion. It is necessary in this context to mention a few brilliant observations of Lenin as early as 1916. He wrote in ‘Imperialism—the Highest Stage of Capitalism’: “The export of capital influences and greatly accelerates the development of capitalism in those countries to which it is exported.” Again, “Capitalism is growing with the greatest rapidity in the colonies and in overseas countries. Among the latter, new imperialist powers are emerging (e.g., Japan).”
Though the Communist circle of India turned a blind eye to all these observations and the concrete situation, the Chinese party was able to evaluate this fact to a considerable extent. In ‘The Chinese Revolution and The Chinese Communist Party’ it is said, “As China’s feudal society had developed a commodity economy, and so carried within itself the seeds of capitalism, China would of herself have developed slowly into a capitalist society even without the impact of foreign capitalism. Penetration by foreign capitalism accelerated this process.” Again, “Apart from its disintegrating effects on the foundations of China’s feudal economy, this state of affairs gave rise to certain objective conditions and possibilities for the development of capitalist production in China”.
The observation that imperialism was not only developing capitalism crushing feudalism, rather a contrary process i.e. of preserving feudalism was also going along was presented too by the Chinese party in that document. “The emergence and development of capitalism is only one aspect of the change that has taken place since the imperialist penetration of China. There is another concomitant and obstructive aspect, namely, the collusion of imperialism with the Chinese feudal forces to arrest the development of Chinese capitalism.” (ibid) Thus the Chinese party had rightly acknowledged the dual role played by imperialism in colonies and semi-colonies. Vis-à-vis the larger section of the Communist revolutionaries of our country finds the role only in preserving feudalism. This is the first anomaly in conclusion whence followed the subjective interpretation of this subject.
After WWII a number of changes took place in global capitalist economy. One of these is almost total subjugation of small capital to big monopoly capital. The mechanism of total control on relatively small capital has been devised by imperialism and spread this franchise system all over the world. On the other side, the Bretton-Woods talks in 1944 solidified the new arrangement of rendering the underdog countries totally dependent through huge loan capital. Since then the dependence of imperialism on feudalism of the underdeveloped countries started declining. To imperialism, feudalism was necessary in underdeveloped countries to divide the world, keeping those countries backward, into developed and underdeveloped ones. But after WWII, with evolving the most modern weapons and institutions of finance capital, feudalism remained no longer essential to imperialism for this purpose. The dual role of imperialism in underdeveloped countries of the semi-colonial period started rapidly become a matter of past. Through reforms, imperialism has taken recourse to developing slowly but steadily a dependent capitalism in countries like ours. Subsequently a huge economic reform has been launched in its support. Thus, economic reform is one of the most important features of neo-colonialism.
This process too has two phases. One phase has continued from 1940 to the 1970’s. Development of capitalism in this period has taken place under state control. This is the feature of no particular country rather that of the capitalist system itself. The same picture is visible also in countries under neo-colonial subjugation. Varieties of Keynsians and neo-Keynsians have reigned in this period in the world of economic theories. This scenario started changing since 1980’s. The second phase of economic reform had set up.  Neo-liberal thoughts prevailed in this period. The development of capitalism in this period ensued directly by big monopoly imperialist capital, by multinational companies. The reign of FDI-FII-INC has clasped speculative capital—the acute and extreme form of decadence and parasitism of the erstwhile finance capital. In both the phases, rule of capital is the essence, though at the present phase it is unbridled. In the world of economic theory, this the era of Milton Freidman, Fredrick Hayek and the likes.
The deliberation the Chinese party presented on neo-colonialism during the Great Debate was incomplete judged even from that contemporary context. Shifting of imperialism from the dual role in underdeveloped countries was not pointed out there. The significance of the economic form of neo-colonial rule that was unfolding at that time was also beyond their discussion, although hegemony of capital (in case of control) was noticed.
“Listen to the voice of the people of Latin America. The Second Havana Declaration says, “Latin America today is under a more ferocious imperialism, more powerful and ruthless than the Spanish colonial empire.”
…Since the end of the Second World War . . . North American investments exceed 10 billion dollars.
. . . There flows from Latin America to the United States a constant torrent of money: some $4,000 per minute, $5 million per day, $2 billion per year, $10 billion each five years. For each thousand dollars which leaves us, one dead body remains. $1,000 per death that is the price of what is called imperialism”.
We know that the document raised the question of neo-colonialism centering a specific question in the debate with the Russian party. So it was quite natural that many issues would remain beyond the purview of discussion. What was necessary is the development of the deliberation which was hampered by the predominance of the extreme lefts in the Chinese party. Concrete analysis of the concrete situation could not be done. As a result, the international Communist revolutionary camp that grew up around the Chinese party made a one-sided evaluation of the economic and political strength of imperialism and mistakenly identified the time as ‘the era of rapid fall of imperialism’. Development of Marxist-Leninist theory on neo-colonial control failed to go ahead.
Conclusion
Foresight drew Lenin to reach the conclusion that the semi-colonies appeared in the first half of the last century will not survive long. These will be of transitional nature. In ‘Imperialism—the Highest Stage of Capitalism’ Lenin writes, “As to the “semi-colonial” states, they provide an example of the transitional forms which are to be found in all spheres of nature and society. Finance capital is such a great, such a decisive, you might say, force in all economic and in all international relations, that it is capable of subjecting, and actually does subject, to itself even states enjoying the fullest political independence”. In this enthralling observation of substance, almost the whole essence of a new world order was implied that is to come after thirty years from that time. Lenin could grasp the dynamics through meticulous consideration of contemporary imperialist economy.
First of all, Lenin could clearly point out that these semi-colonies will not last long before the all-devouring supremacy of finance capital. Before long, these will come under total control of imperialism and on the question of share of this, fight among the imperialists will be fierce. Thus the conversion of semi-colonies to colonies was just a matter of time, and that really happened. The change that has occurred is in the mode of colonization, the hint there of lies in that very statement of Lenin. In the second part of his remarks, Lenin has correctly shown that finance capital is ‘such a decisive force’ which can bring ‘even the states enjoying fullest political freedom’ under its control. So, not only the subject countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, even the fully politically independent of Europe can also be brought under full control of imperialism and, if viewed from other angle, even if the dependent countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America are allowed political independence, they can still be controlled. Thus the development of political institutions and reforms can never curb the dominance of finance capital, rather, we have seen, they can appear as toughened means of dominance of finance capital.  Example of Asia, Africa and Latin America was not possible for Lenin to cite because Lenin’s above observation had been materialised there after about three decades. But in case of Europe, Lenin put the fascinating instance of Portugal. He writes, “A somewhat different form of financial and diplomatic dependence, accompanied by political independence, is presented by Portugal. Portugal is an independent sovereign state, but actually, for more than two hundred years, since the war of the Spanish Succession (1701-14), it has been a British protectorate. Great Britain has protected Portugal and her colonies in order to fortify her own positions in the fight against her rivals, Spain and France. In return Great Britain has received commercial privileges, preferential conditions for importing goods and especially capital into Portugal and the Portuguese colonies, the right to use the ports and islands of Portugal, her telegraph cables, etc., etc.” Just notice, how a comparatively weak imperialist power is also being controlled by the British bourgeoisie for not a couple of years, rather for two hundred years. That the hegemony of finance capital is able to reinforce this control and make it smooth needs no mention. This control in the age of finance capital becomes absolute. It grows up to a world system. Next to the above, Lenin writes, “Relations of this kind have always existed between big and little states, but in the epoch of capitalist imperialism they become a general system, they form part of the sum total of “divide the world” relations and become links in the chain of operations of world finance capital”. Preserving feudalism no longer remains necessary to such a world system. Rather, getting feudalism gradually wither away through reforms from above at a slow pace is beneficial for it. Commodity economy and the flow of capital becomes thereby more dynamic. Political institutions and reform process becomes compatible as components of this very economy. Rapid financial growth of some countries (like India, Brazil etc) within the neo-colonial network that often makes people puzzled also appears as an internal component of this all pervading dominance and control of finance capital. Uneven development is but an insurmountable feature of imperialism that appears here some time and there at some other time. In this very context, it is possible to understand rapid growth of capitalism in this world locally or in its various branches.