Social-imperialism

Social-imperialism is a term commonly used by ultra-leftists to suggest that socialist states, such as the Soviet Union after Stalin and the People's Republic of China after Mao Zedong, had ceased to be socialist and instead became fascist and imperialist.

History

As a term, "social-imperialism" originated in a 1916 quote by Vladimir Lenin where he describes the liberal social-democratic SPD as "socialist in name, imperialist in deeds". In this context, the term is similar to "social chauvinism"; notably, the suggestion was not that such organizations were formerly socialist and had turned imperialist, but rather that they were imperialist organizations under a veneer of fake socialist phraseology.

Afterward, the term was not used again in any notable Marxist texts or analyses until it was reintroduced by Mao in 1964, after the Sino-Soviet split, when he described the Khrushchev-era Soviet Union as "a Hitlerite imperialist state". The term subsequently saw further use in Enver Hoxha's treatise "Imperialism and the Revolution".

Notably, neither Mao nor Hoxha ever explained what the material basis of a "social-imperialist" state would be, and what the social formation of such a state looked like. Marxism-Leninism traditionally holds that the class character of a state changes only through (counter)revolution, and not through reform alone; with this in mind, it is generally accepted by Marxist-Leninists today that the theory of "social-imperialism" lacks a material explanation, and may in fact constitute a left deviation.