p .. .Two trends exist; one, which makes an alliance of all the imperialists inevitable; the other, which places the imperialists in opposition to each other—two trends, neither of which has any firm foundation.

p V. I. Lenin

p Relations between the imperialist countries have a longer history than any other relations in the contemporary international scene. Only a little over half a century ago they held undivided sway in international affairs and set the tone for world politics. Even though that period has faded into-the past, the problems of inter-imperialist relations are still as topical as they ever have been. We are talking here about relations between countries which have a high level of productive forces, which account for a very important part of world industrial output, and which have a powerful military potential and huge political experience.

p The problems of inter-imperialist relations attracted the close attention of Lenin both in his elaboration of the theory of imperialism and in his formulation of the foreign policy of the world’s first socialist country. Lenin’s analysis of these relations, which is continued and furthered by his loyal Communist students, retains its fundamental importance and relevance today.

p Lenin based himself on the general propositions of historical materialism and exposed the economic and social roots of relations between imperialist countries. On more than one occasion, he stressed that “private ownership disunites”. That is what decides the main content of imperialist foreign policy. “We have before us all the world’s greatest capitalist 201 powers—Britain, France, America, and Germany—who for decades have doggedly pursued a policy of incessant economic rivalry aimed at achieving world supremacy, subjugating the small nations, and making threefold and tenfold profits on banking capital, which has caught the whole world in the net of its influence,” Lenin wrote.  [201•* 

p In his work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin traces the emergence in foreign policy of the major traits of imperialism which produce increasing unevenness of economic and political development and an intensifying struggle for the division and redivision of the world.

p The competition for markets and spheres of capital investment, for colonies, economic territory, on the one hand, implies unremitting violence and merciless plunder by the socalled great powers of the weak countries and peoples, especially the underdeveloped nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. On the other hand, this rivalry is accompanied by growing contradictions and struggle among the imperialist predators themselves, which dominated world politics at the turn of the century. Lenin showed that international politics “which is the struggle of the great powers for the economic and political division of the world"  [201•**  in conditions of finance capital domination, inevitably brings about clashes and conflicts among them, spilling over into wars of various magnitude, right up to world wars.

p Lenin studied from this standpoint the specific history of international relations before the First World War. His chronological notes in Notebooks on Imperialism are extremely eloquent both from the point of view of their choice of international events and from the viewpoint of terminology determining the meaning of particular events. Lenin’s notes impress one by his laconic revelation of the real meaning of imperialist agreements, whose officially published texts often had nothing in common with their actual meaning. The publication after 1917 of tsarist Russia’s secret treaties confirmed how deeply Lenin had managed to get to the heart of the matter.

p The law that Lenin formulated on the uneven economic and political development of capitalist countries had immense methodological importance for understanding interimperialist relations and the way they worked. Similarly, Lenin’s criticism of the theory of “ultra-imperialism”, and the slogan of the “United States of Europe”, were highly instructive from the point of view of studying the trends and prospects of inter-imperialist relations.

p Lenin’s analysis of inter-imperialist contradictions and relations received fresh confirmation during the First World War, and became, after the October Revolution, a cornerstone of Soviet foreign policy.

p The emergence of a common class enemy for all imperialist powers, the Soviet state, could neither eliminate the “ ineradicable strife of economic interests” among imperialists in individual countries, nor do away with the irreconcilable conflicts between them which produced the First World War. Lenin often indicated the importance of these conflicts, in particular, when he came to describe past events three years after the revolution. He said: “During the Brest-Litovsk period there were two immensely powerful groups of imperialist predators—the Austro-German and the Anglo- FrancoAmerican. They were locked in a furious struggle which was to decide the fate of the world for the immediate future.”  [202•* 

p Relations between each of the imperialist groupings were also marked by constant bickering which only grew worse after the war. Lenin described relations within the victorious Entente in such terms: ”. . .The leaders of four nations, but even they cannot reach an agreement. Britain and America do not want France to have the coal profits. They are wild beasts who have plundered the whole world and are now quarrelling over the prey.”  [202•** 

p At the same time, the appearance of socialism on the scene and the strengthening of its positions were bound to tell on inter-imperialist relations. On the one hand, the appearance of a state which represented an antagonistic socio-economic 203 system brought about a certain class solidarity of the imperialist circles, and a stronger trend towards unity; yet, on the other hand, it inevitably deepened the inter-imperialist contradictions. A new area of such contradictions, on the question of the attitude to be taken towards the socialist system, now appeared. The tangle and the fight of both trends found its reflection in several attempts to build a united anti-Soviet and anti-socialist front and, subsequently, the invariable failure of such attempts, and in the rivalry among individual capitalist countries in the sphere of economic collaboration with the Soviet Republic.

p Lenin always attributed great importance in his theoretical and practical work to that factor. One recalls that it was the inter-imperialist contradictions which engendered the First World War and in a certain sense facilitated the triumph of the October Revolution and the building of socialism in our country. We have already mentioned that Lenin described the inter-imperialist contradictions as a major condition for the success of socialist foreign policy and even for the very existence of the Soviet state; he considered it feasible and necessary to use them widely in the interests of revolution and socialism. In connection with the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, for example, he wrote: “In concluding a separate peace we free ourselves as much as is possible at the present moment from both hostile imperialist groups, we take advantage of their mutual enmity and warfare which hamper concerted action on their part against us, and for a certain period have our hands free to advance and to consolidate the socialist revolution.”  [203•* 

p Lenin saw the growing discord among the imperialist powers in the spring of 1918 as a guarantee of peace for the Soviet Republic.  [203•**  Later, he showed on more than one occasion that the conflicts between Britain and France in relation to Soviet Russia were one of the reasons for the Soviet victory in the confrontation with the Entente imperialists.

p In his study of international relations immediately after 204 the revolution, Lenin said: “The experience of world politics has shown that the alliance against Soviet Russia is irretrievably doomed to failure, because it is an imperialist alliance, an alliance of plunderers who are not united, and are bound by no genuine or permanent interests.”  [204•* 

p The battle between the two trends—the one which made a union of all imperialists inevitable, the other counterposing one group of imperialists to the other—continued to mark relations between the principal imperialist powers. On the one hand, attempts were made to secure the unity and stability of the imperialist system of international relations through the Versailles-Washington treaties, the League of Nations, the Locarno Treaty, the Briand-Kellogg Pact, the various plans for creating a “Pan-Europe”, the Four-Power Pact—Britain, France, Germany and Italy—and, finally, the Munich deal by imperialist states on an anti-Soviet platform; on the other hand, there were the inconsistency of these attemps, the failure of the Versailles-Washington system, fierce economic rivalry, the periodic exacerbation of political conflicts between individual imperialist countries and groups of countries.

p The extreme conflicts of inter-imperialist contradictions found expression in the war that began in 1939 between Germany, Italy and Japan, on the one hand, and Britain and France, supported by the United States and other countries, on the other. Shortly after, nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union. On the whole, the alignment of power in the war reflected the domination of the latter trend of the two mentioned by Lenin; the one which counterposes some imperialists to others. This did not mean, however, that the operation of the former had been terminated; it was manifested above all in the so-called “phoney war”, when Britain and France still had hopes of directing Axis aggression against the Soviet Union and they themselves prepared for an anti-Soviet campaign, and also in the secret negotiations between Anglo-American emissaries with representatives of nazi Germany, and in the striving for a separate peace intended to save German imperialism from utter defeat.

Relations between imperialist countries continued to show the tangle of both tendencies after the war, when the vast changes that had occurred in the world, and especially the new balance of power between capitalism and socialism, were bound deeply to effect this particular sphere of international relations. While the class essence of relations between imperialist countries, like the nature of imperialism itself, had not changed, and could not change, far-reaching changes took place in inter-imperialist relations associated with the emergence, existence and strengthening of the world socialist system and with other social shifts of the present day, and also with the latest trends in the development of productive forces. And while the basic substance of inter- imperialist relations discovered by Lenin has not changed, their forms and specific manifestations have taken on new features. The importance of inter-imperialist contradictions in the overall complex of world politics has also changed, and their role in comparison with other types of international relations has noticeably diminished.