On the question of America entering the war I shall say this. People argue that America is a democracy, America has the White House. I say: slavery was abolished there half a century ago. The anti-slave war ended in 1865. Since then multimillionaires have mushroomed. They have the whole of America in their financial grip. They are making ready to subdue Mexico and will inevitably come to war with Japan over a carve-up of the Pacific. This war has been brewing for several decades. All literature speaks about it. America’s real aim in entering the war is to prepare for this future war with Japan. The American people do enjoy considerable freedom and it is difficult to conceive them standing for compulsory military service, for the setting up of an army pursuing any aims of conquest a struggle with Japan, for instance. The Americans have the example of Europe to show them what this leads to. The American capitalists have stepped into this war in order to have an excuse, behind a smoke-screen of lofty ideals championing the rights of small nations, for building up a strong standing army.
- Lenin, “War and Revolution”, 14 may 1917
I seen both here and on reddit that some people seems to have wrong impressions about the origins of Pacific War. So here’s the short quote of Lenin predicting it and attributing it solely to the natural developemnt of imperialism (described elswhere in the same article), almost quarter of century before it even started. As you can see, everything went exactly like he predicted.
Wonder if that means we’re underestimating the establishment’s planning horizon
Not really. He explains it in the same article earlier, that it’s just how imperialism works.
Little bit of both IMO. Both its natural tendency but also, I believe a few of the ruling class are genuinely smart albeit psychopathic strategists, who efforts might be the small thing that prolongs capitalism’s self destruction longer. Although said evil geniuses working behind the scenes would even, IMO, be yet another predictable and natural tendency of capitalism.
Yes that was his point, that those people are of course personally responsible, and that capitalism and imperialism isn’t a force of nature, but it is a force of society.