Imperialist countries according to mass murderer Lenin

Spoiler: Lenin knew a lot about murder, terror, and concentration camps. He knew nothing about economics. According to his ramblings about "imperialism", USA is not imperialistic but China and Russia are. But the leftists who are too lazy and thick to think for themselves still use the meningless concept of imperialism. Should they think, they would find that China and Russia are "imperialistic".

Amid all the tearing down of statues by BLM activists, some morons in Gelsenkirchen actually erected a statue by the mass murderer Lenin. Lenin was not a revolutionary leader; he was a coup maker who was financed by the Germans to overthrow the interim Russian government and make peace with Germany so they could concentrate on the Western Front.

Lenin said a lot of horrible things and a lot of stupid things. The most famous Lenin quote is the hanging order which was issued on 11 August 1918:

"Comrades! The insurrection of five kulak districts should be pitilessly suppressed. The interests of the whole revolution require this because 'the last decisive battle' with the kulaks is now under way everywhere. An example must be demonstrated.

1. Hang (absolutely hang, in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, filthy rich men, bloodsuckers.

2. Publish their names.

3. Seize all grain from them.

4. Designate hostages - in accordance with yesterday's telegram.

Do it in such a fashion, that for hundreds of verst around the people see, tremble, know, shout: "strangling (is done) and will continue for the bloodsucking kulaks".

Telegraph the receipt and the implementation. Yours, Lenin.

P.S. Use your toughest people for this."

It was followed up a week later by Lenin who was disappointed that not enough people were hanged:

“I am extremely indignant that there has been absolutely nothing definite from you as to what serious measures have at last been carried out by you for ruthless suppression of the kulaks of five volosts and confiscation of their grain. Your inactivity is criminal. All efforts should be concentrated on a single volost which should be swept clean of all grain surpluses.” 

But that’s another story. Lenin has been celebrated and mentioned in connection with Marx as a great theorist. By people who don’t know better that is. His main work is supposed to be Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. This pamphlet contains a lot of misunderstanding, ramblings, and attacks against people who disagreed with him, especially Karl Kautsky.

But the pamphlet is most of all about his misunderstandings of a fundamental relationship in economics. As everyone knows, if you spend less than you earn, you can save an amount. These savings can be lent to someone who spend more than he or she earns. In Lenin’s terms that would be export of capital which is the third criteria of five in what he considered to be key elements of any definition of imperialism.

Also countries can save more than they spend. It’s only slightly more complex. Households and firms make up the private sector and national, regional, and local governments make up the public sector. In the private sector, savings equals disposable income minus expenditures on consumption and investments. Disposable income is what is left after you have paid taxes to and received transfers from the government. In the public sector, savings equals taxes minus transfers to the private sector and investments. Adding these together plus net income yields total financial savings. And a country’s total financial savings equals its current account balance.

Countries with a positive current account, export capital. Countries that export capital have a negative financial account balance. And this has nothing to do with Lenin’s obsession with “concentration of capital”, “financial oligarchs”, “overripe capitalist countries” or the price of rice in China. Lenin did not distinguish between capitalists or countries. They were all lumped together as capitalist countries. According to Lenin’s misunderstandings of economics, USA has not been an imperialist country since around 1980, while China and Russia are imperialistic.

Current accounts in percent of GDP in USA, Russia and China.

Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Balance of payments BPM6: Current account Balance: Total: Total Balance as % of GDP, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org

China would definitely be an imperialist country according to Lenin. The Chinese have used their capital export to make many developing countries indebted and dependent on China. See here for more about that.

But let’s return to this stupidity of capital exports, i.e. the current account and imperialism. As mentioned above, a country’s total financial savings, current account balance, are the sum of the private sector’s financial savings and the public sector’s financial savings. During the Global Financial Crisis, many countries had budget deficits, i.e. negative financial savings. Since private sector financial savings were too small to compensate for that, those countries ran current account deficits. To reduce the budget deficits, austerity measures such as reducing government spending on education, infrastructure, health care, wages and more were introduced as well as increased taxes and fees in the public sector. After some years, the current account deficits were eliminated. Some countries current account balances had turned to surpluses instead. Did Italy and Spain become imperialistic?

Imperialism by austerity

Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Balance of payments BPM6: Current account Balance: Total: Total Balance as % of GDP, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org

The concept imperialism is of course meaningless. I have just showed one aspect of its meaningless. But it is used mainly by leftists who are too lazy or stupid to think things through, just like Lenin. But let’s give the man some credit. Even if he didn’t understand anything about economics, he certainly knew how to murder his opponents and terrorise his population. And he introduced concentration camps to the Soviet Union. He was actually incredibly good at seizing the power, by a coup NOT a revolution, and keep it, at any costs. And the costs came in human lives. He was also a good liar, innovative when it came to insult his opponents and managed to start a famine which killed millions just like the civil war he started. He was definitely not a pacifist. He despised pacifists. He broke a peace with the Germans, who had financed his coup, so he could use the soldiers to crush his enemies. And forced Ukraina to be part of the useless Soviet Union for more than 70 years.

No wonder Ukrainians hated him so much that they tore down the statues of the bastard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI5k7vMj0Wk