Venezuelan analyst: Lenin on ‘Socialism and War’

A message from Rodríguez Gelfenstein, a political analyst and former Venezuelan diplomat and official, to the International Assembly against Imperialism in Solidarity with Palestine on Jan. 21 in New York City.

Amid the horror exposed by Israel’s colonial-imperialist aggression against the Palestinian people, we commemorate the centennial of [Vladimir] Lenin’s death. It would seem a paradox to commemorate something, almost anything, when a whole people is suffering the unspeakable at the hands of the Zionist entity that acts with the U.S. empire’s backing.

In his article “Socialism and War,” written between July and August 1915, Lenin aimed to clearly show what imperialism means. He exposed that from 1876 onward, thanks to a highly developed capitalism, nations whose peoples in the past had fought for freedom after 1876 became the oppressors and enslavers of most of the populations and nations of the globe.

Thus, Lenin brought to light that between 1876 and 1914, six great powers seized nearly 10 million square miles of territory. This is an area two and a half times the size of Europe. Unfortunately, more than a hundred years later, this domination continues, either directly or masked by new forms of rule.

The current situation in Palestine is the one that most crudely exhibits this situation, but it is not the only one in all regions of the planet, where the specter of colonialism continues to make its presence felt as a brutal expression of imperial control. Already in 1915, Lenin pointed out that “everyone knows that the colonies have been conquered by blood and fire, that their inhabitants are barbarously treated and exploited in a thousand ways … ”

The presence on the planet of the colonial regime Lenin denounced more than 100 years ago is an affront to humanity. To that extent, to fight for this regime’s extermination and disappearance remains a present task. In this way, we will be able to pay homage — in some way — to that outstanding leader of the workers who, with his ideas and actions, showed us the way to liberation and to a better world in which there are neither exploiters nor exploited, nor colonizing powers and colonized countries.