It was imperialism — not in its generic sense, encompassing the whole history of colonialism — but in its connection to the monopoly stage of capitalism, as V. I. Lenin employed the term, that constituted the differentia specifica of twentieth-century capitalism, determining the conditions of both revolution and counterrevolution. Already by the late nineteenth century, the contest over colonies that had shaped much of European conflict since the seventeenth century had been replaced by a struggle of a qualitatively new kind: competition between nation-states and their corporations, not for imperial zones, but for actual global hegemony in an increasingly interconnected imperialist world system. Henceforth revolution and counterrevolution would be interrelated at the level of the system as a whole. All revolutionary waves, concentrated in the periphery where exploitation was most severe, since intensified by the extraction of surplus by the metropolitan powers, were revolts against imperialism, and were confronted by imperialist counterrevolution, organized by the core capitalist states. Complicating this was the fact that a privileged sector of the working class in the advanced capitalist states could be seen as benefitting [sic] indirectly from the drain of surplus from the periphery, giving rise to a “labor aristocracy,” a phenomenon first singled out Frederick Engels and later theorized by Lenin in his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.After the fall of the Soviet Union, in much of the West a triumphalist view of the Cold War celebrated not just a reduction in a military threat but a supposed ideological and practical triumph of capitalism. This is what Francis Fukayama and others celebrated as "the end of history," a Hegelian phrase that meant something similar to Daniel Bell's "end of ideology" decades earlier.
Still, in 1967, a half-century after October 1917 and a hundred years after Capital, it was not unreasonable to assume, amid the Vietnam War and the Cultural Revolution in China, that world revolution would gradually gain the upper hand, and that the revolutions that had occurred, not only in Russia, but also in China, Cuba, and elsewhere, were irreversible. [my emphasis]
Foster has an interesting observation about the influence of Nicholas Spykman on George Kennan's "containment" theory. Which, it's worth noting, is not exactly what the Truman Administration implemented. At least not in the predominant emphasis from Truman's and later administrations on military containment. Spykmanm was the author of America’s Strategy in World Politics: The United States and the Balance of Power (1942) and The Geography of Peace (1944). Francis Sempa writes (Nicholas Spykman and the Struggle for the Asiatic Mediterranean The Diplomat 01/09/2015):
Spykman sketched a geopolitical map that identified the key geographic power centers of the world, including the “Heartland” of Eurasia (H.J. Mackinder’s term for the northern-central core of the Eurasian landmass), the Eurasian Rimland (the crescent-shaped territory abutting the Heartland, which included the countries of Western Europe, the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and the Far East), and North America. In evaluating the power potentials of each key region, Spykman memorably wrote, “Who controls the rimland, rules Eurasia; who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world.”Kennan himself wrote on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution (The Russian Revolution: Its Nature and Consequences Foreign Affairs 46:1 1967) that the world war was a major factor in the popular understanding of the October Revolution. He writes that "often obscured to Western vision events of the intervening years but basic to any of it, is the essential altruism of purpose that underlay this revolution." (my emphasis) Yes, this is the author of the containment theory speaking. And he makes it clear he's referring to the Bolshevik Revolution, not solely or even primarily of the February Revolution. He writes of the great social issue presented by the class structure of capitalism:
The outlook that inspired the Bolsheviki brought them finally to power was founded on an understandable desire to correct these anomalies [generated by industrialization under modern capitalism], to eliminate social and economic exploitation, to assure to the servant of the machine the comfort, security, dignity of status community of which the Industrial Revolution and of the capitalist system were conceived to have robbed him. The tensions and troubles of the intervening years should not cause us to forget that this was, measured against the circumstances then prevailing, a noble dream, supported by a great earnestness of purpose, and pursued by thousands and tens of thousands of people in Russia, including many of the Bolsheviki, with a selfless dedication that has few parallels in the history of our time. [my emphasis]It was a big deal, to put it mildly.
Kennan continues, explaining how the unprecedented horrors of the Great War (First World War) provided an essential backdrop to popular foreign perceptions of the revolution:
In 1917 millions of people across the continent of Europe had been reduced to desperation by social distress or by the sufferings of the World War or by a combination of the two. One cannot understand the meaning of the Russian Revolution unless one recalls the vast thrill of excitement and anticipation that went through great portions of the world public as the news of this event reached them. Tsardom, in its helpless ineptness, had permitted itself to stand before the eyes of the world as the symbol of an obsolescent and oppressive feudalism. To many millions beyond Russia's borders the Russian Revolution appeared initially as a great breakthrough of hope. Here were boldness, grandeur of concept and elevation of purpose bursting through the empty crust of tradition and privilege in one of the most backward and miserable of European countries. Here was the first great attempt to defy the evils of modern industrialism by setting against it a political system founded on the dignity and social innocence of the common working man - dedicated to the realization of his needs, his dreams, his aspirations. [my emphasis]He is explicit in saying that the revolution was pursued with "extreme harshness, ruthlessness and opportunism of method, as well as the vindictive hatred addressed to members of the propertied or privileged classes in Russia and elsewhere, by which the early Bolsheviki were inspired." It didn't happen by conventions of workers and peasants getting together and voting to have a new, harmonious society.
And yet, despite what Kennan calls the "conflict, violence, dictatorial method, the disenfranchisement and punishment of great masses of people" that had their place in the "promulgation and consolidation of the Revolution," he nevertheless argued that "one is obliged to concede to the Russian Revolution the status of the greatest political event of the present century," the 20th century,
There's a good argument to be made that Kennan seriously misread Soviet intentions in the postwar period as the Cold War developed. And he always believed that the Communist approach was misguided and responsible for a great deal of needless and unjust suffering. He also found Communism to be in conflict with his own Christian religious beliefs.
But he was a serious guy, one of the leading American experts on Russia of his time, and one of the leading figures in the "realist" foreign policy tradition. So what he had to say still commands attention. So when he was saying 50 years out from the October Revolution that it was the greatest political event of first 66 years of the 20th century, he wasn't just trying to turn a flowery phrase.
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