Lü Xinyu: Leninism and "War and Peace" in the Twenty-First Century
I. The "Lenin as German Agent" Case, Cold War History, and the Roots of Historical Nihilism
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the drastic changes in Eastern Europe ushered in the post-Cold War era. In 1989, Francis Fukuyama delivered a speech as a victor of the Cold War, and in 1993 published The End of History and the Last Man, proclaiming the victory of the free world and the end of history. A frenzy of attacks on and denials of Marxism erupted within the Soviet and Eastern European blocs before and after their disintegration. Anti-Leninist and anti-socialist trends became prevalent, forming a signature global spectacle of the post-Cold War era. In the Soviet Union and post-disintegration Russia, the critique of the "October Revolution" began between 1987 and 1991, peaking in August 1991 and becoming the subsequent "official" narrative. From 1993 to 1995, as Russia's "shock therapy" economic reforms under Yeltsin teetered on the brink of total failure, affirmations of the October Revolution began to increase, though controversy grew more intense. To achieve social "reconcilement," the organizing committee for the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution in 2017 passed a series of activities and published teaching reference books. Using the French Revolution as an analogy, they ultimately established a new name and definition for the event: the "Great Russian Revolution."
The echo of this "historical nihilism" [1]—which denies the 20th-century Chinese and Russian revolutions—within China (or rather, the large-scale "plagiarism" of foreign narratives) has been equally spectacular. Its primary manifestation is that the intersection of history and mass media has become the main battlefield of Chinese ideology, spawning a media phenomenon the author calls "reversalist historiography" [2]. This is particularly concentrated in research fields such as the history of the International Communist Movement and the history of the Chinese Revolution.
"Reversalist historiography" often manifests through the lens of "Cold War history." On one hand, its topics of concern primarily stem from the "hot war" period; on the other, its basic narrative framework is derived from the "official historiography" produced by the American camp during the Cold War. The concept of the "Cold War" was originally proposed by George Orwell in 1945 to criticize a bipolar world following the emergence of the atomic bomb, where oppressed and exploited peoples lost the possibility of resistance, trapped in a permanent, undeclared state of war. Later, in the 1950s, the term was adopted by the United States to refer specifically to the state of undeclared war and offensive containment directed at the Soviet Union. Prior to Gorbachev, the Soviet Union never formally used this term, believing that they upheld world peace while American imperialism was the aggressor.
The term "Cold War" only appeared in Chinese academic circles after the 1980s; previously, related topics were studied under the framework of the "History of Modern International Relations." Particularly in the late 1980s and 1990s, Chinese scholars studying in the U.S. began introducing Western Cold War studies to China. Following the Soviet collapse and the end of the Cold War in 1991, a series of Soviet archives were briefly declassified in the early-to-mid 1990s, greatly stimulating the fever for "Cold War history." From 1998 to 2007, the Chinese academic community held a series of influential seminars, through which "Cold War history" entered the research apparatus of Chinese universities, established cooperation with famous overseas Cold War research centers, and developed rapidly to become a vanguard for the integration of Chinese historiography with global academia.
In a significant sense, following the incubation and fermentation of the 1990s, the "ideological Cold War" carried by America’s "official" Cold War history continued and developed in post-Cold War Russia and China. This is the primary source of the "reversalist historiography" manifest in mass media. This was especially prominent between 2010 and 2014, when the social media platform Weibo rose and became the source of Chinese political discourse. Its salient feature was the use of a single-ethnic-state or national-interest framework to tailor and re-narrate the relationship between Soviet Russia, the Comintern, and the Chinese revolution. Narrow nationalism/social chauvinism was used to replace the socialist/internationalist perspective, ignoring or even denying the complex historical thread of socialism, democracy, and nationalism since the 20th century, as well as the line struggles [3] and class struggles (and their events in different historical contexts) both within and outside the International Communist Movement.
The 20th century was an era of fierce class struggle through blood and fire; the long-term existence of different actions and hostile voices was the norm, whether between the socialist and capitalist camps during World War II or the Eastern and Western blocs during the Cold War. In fact, to this day, the various debates and struggles within the socialist and capitalist camps of the East and West have never ceased. However, the sole conclusion that "reversalist historiography" hopes to prove is that the Chinese Revolution was merely the result of Soviet Russia manipulating China for its own national interests. This has been used to "feed" and shape the (online) right-wing populist currents in China since the 1990s, with the aim of dismantling the legitimacy of the 20th-century Russian and Chinese revolutions, as well as the legitimacy of New China, which is inextricably linked to them. This is, to a large extent, even a "resurrection" of the Kuomintang’s view of history. Under the impact of the "Republic of China fever" [4] that swept China in the 1990s, the "resurrection" of Kuomintang perspectives is hardly surprising.
A major source of China's "reversalist historiography" is precisely the American Asian studies of the mid-20th century Cold War era. The establishment of regional and Asian studies in American universities was a product of the Office of Strategic Services’ Cold War policy of "containment" against the Soviet Union. As is well known, this research received massive funding from the U.S. government and private foundations. After the victory in the Anti-Fascist War, driven by the Truman administration's increasing hostility and containment of the Soviet Union, and the persecution and purges of academia under McCarthyism, the dominant direction of China studies shifted. It moved away from topics like the CPC and the peasantry, imperialism, and the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, toward focusing on the conspiracies of Soviet Russia and the Comintern in China and their manipulation of the country. This was used to explain and respond to the question of "who lost China" and to exonerate those responsible. As Mark Selden noted, most works published at the time focused on Comintern conspiracies and emphasized the Chinese communist movement's imitation of Soviet Russia, while ignoring the social and economic roots of the Chinese revolution. Echoing the U.S. government's condemnation of a monolithic communist movement manipulated by Moscow, American academia at the time also centered on Soviet manipulation of the Chinese revolution. This view was reinforced by the Sino-Soviet alliance of the early 1950s and China's "leaning to one side" foreign policy toward the Soviet Union.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, these views from American Cold War studies "borrowed a corpse to resurrect a soul" [5], becoming the "stale rice" [6] that China's "reversalist historiography" has been keen to reheat since the 1990s. This created a meaningful resonance between the U.S. in the 1950s/60s and China around the turn of the 21st century—a highly ironic phenomenon. The "Lenin as German Agent" case is a typical representative of reversalist historiography or historical nihilism. In December 2007, the famous German current affairs magazine Der Spiegel re-hyped this rumor to coincide with the 90th anniversary of the October Revolution, as a measure to further deconstruct and stigmatize its significance. As expected, this wave of public opinion warfare spread from Europe to China, where it continues to reverberate. From 1917 to 2007, what "borrowed a corpse to resurrect a soul" alongside it was precisely the ghost of the Cold War. Regrettably, since the author published a textual research of the century-long transmission of the "Lenin as German Agent" rumor in 2014, the rumor has not ceased.
At present, a so-called "New Cold War" is descending. In December 2018, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a speech, once again proclaiming the role of the Cold War victor: "American leadership has allowed us to enjoy the most prosperous period of human rights in modern history. We won the Cold War." However, after the Cold War ended, contrary to Fukuyama's narrative, in Pompeo's view, the liberal order began to erode. He accused a series of countries and treaties of not conforming to American interests and threatened: "International institutions must help facilitate cooperation that bolsters the security and values of the free world, or they must be reformed or eliminated." With the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the United States began "maximum pressure" on China. On July 21, the U.S. government suddenly demanded the closure of the Chinese Consulate General in Houston. On the 23rd, Pompeo delivered a speech at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library titled "Communist China and the Free World's Future," declaring that the relationship between the U.S. and China is a struggle between the free world and the autocratic world—this was regarded as a public manifesto of the "New Cold War" to contain China. In fact, the logic of Pompeo's speech had a clear origin. Since the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the ideological Cold War has never dissipated.
In this sense, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict marks the end of the two global universalist discourses that followed the collapse of the Soviet bloc. On the one hand, the internationalist united front of the Third World against imperialism and feudalism, formed after World War II, has completely fallen. Today, the massive resurgence of imperialism and "feudalism" is becoming the main symptom of this world. As a response to global Monroeism, a strong resurgence of "beggar-thy-neighbor" nationalism and fascism is striking the global conscience. The New Cold War "containment strategy" being forged by the United States targets not only post-Cold War Russia but also "communist" China. As the only Third World socialist country to "rise" from the hot and cold wars of the 20th century, China faces an increasingly serious situation of ideological encirclement from the convergence of both left- and right-wing Cold War ideologies; the "New Cold War" remains a continuation of 20th-century history.
On the other hand, U.S. President Bill Clinton’s "Democratic Peace Theory," defined by the boundaries of civilization, began with NATO bypassing the United Nations to bomb the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. From armed intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq to Syria, the "Democratic Peace Theory" has become a manifesto for global military intervention, while the claim that "human rights are superior to sovereignty" has received endorsement from European left-wing thought. Western universalist values, marked by freedom, democracy, and human rights, have also splintered and shaken the globe following the explosions of the Russia-Ukraine conflict—a sentiment vividly expressed in Putin’s many speeches. Using "the opponent’s spear to strike the opponent’s shield" [7], the West and Russia accuse each other of "genocide." This is merely the latest wave of the Western capitalist world's implosion—the legitimacy gained by ethnic "nationalism" in the name of "liberation" is the Pandora's box opened by the "End of History" following the Soviet collapse, only today its disguise is "civilization." Unsurprisingly, since the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the "theory of hierarchy of civilizations" and so-called "Asiatic Despotism" have been resurrected worldwide, reminding people that today’s "fight for freedom" leads not—and cannot lead—to permanent peace, but rather to a Third World War and the end of humanity under a nuclear winter.
The achievements of the World Anti-Fascist War completed by the Soviet Red Army were marked by the establishment of the Yalta system. The collapse of the world pattern it laid down following the Soviet disintegration is manifested as NATO’s eastward expansion, which is also the source of today's New Cold War. When the 20th century’s greatest event, the Russian October Revolution, is denied, the pre-WWI European "law of the jungle" of nationalism follows in its wake. The Soviet Union rose from the ruins and blood of World War I—the emergence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was itself an effort by human society to seek transcendence over the nation-state and explore world peace. It represented the struggle between the two lines on "war and peace" carried out by Leninism and Wilsonianism. In this regard, people should return to the source of the Soviet Union's birth, not its end, and return to the starting point of the Third World socialist movement.
Some argue that the United States continues to use force overseas but fails to achieve its original intent, instead causing conflicts, crises, and wars. As early as the 1960s, William Appleman Williams pointed out that "there is a fundamental tragic element in American diplomacy." Williams was focused on the Cuban issue from 1959 to 1961, but he already perceived that the Cuban crisis was symbolic of the tragedy of American diplomacy throughout the 20th century. At the time, Williams' view was considered a left-wing, radical argument and caused much controversy; however, looking back from a half-century later, the U.S.’s frequent use of force in East Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East has almost always ended in a tragedy of harming others without benefiting itself. Rereading his old works and reflecting on the current global situation, Williams indeed possessed keen foresight.
Williams here refers to the most important representative of American New Left revisionist historiography, yet not a single one of his books has been translated into Chinese by the Chinese community of Cold War historians, including his most famous work mentioned here, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. Instead, Chinese Cold War studies have translated a vast number of "official history" books by the architects of the Cold War, such as Henry Kissinger and George Kennan, as well as discourses from the "post-revisionist" school. For instance, no fewer than four books by the landmark figure John Lewis Gaddis have been translated into Chinese—some even in multiple editions—receiving enthusiastic acclaim from both the market and academia. Within these discourses, one observes a series of binary oppositions: democracy vs. authoritarianism, liberty vs. autocracy, state vs. society, and the West vs. China. These oppositions are both the historical projection of realpolitik struggles in the 1990s and the projection of the Cold War's dividing lines; they remain hidden deep within the contemporary theories of "globalization" and "modernity." Today, the world remains imprisoned within a series of cognitive barriers built on these binary oppositions. The foundation and aim of the intellectual and ideological reproduction that has led to the so-called "New Cold War" is to "reclaim lost territory" from the standpoint of Western-centrism and the victors of the Cold War, exorcising the specter of socialism on a global scale. Only this time, it is directly targeted at China.
This is the ultimate root of all "historical nihilism" [8].
II. The Specter of "Leninism," Civilizational Theory, and Pandora's Box
One may look back at the contributions of George H.W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin to the creation of today's Ukraine. Recalling this period of history, George H.W. Bush said: "The day before the referendum, I called Gorbachev to tell him that as a democratic country, we must support Ukraine regardless of the outcome, but we also wanted to do something for a peaceful transition to a new order. For me, recognizing Ukraine was about bringing it into a process of agreement—regarding the issue of its transfer of sovereignty..." Brent Scowcroft recalled: "Ukraine was the key to creating a viable union. Gorbachev somehow thought Ukraine would vote for independence but still join the union. Yeltsin thought otherwise; his opinion on recognizing independence as quickly as possible showed he was maneuvering to keep Ukraine out of the union, thereby leading to the union’s failure. Yeltsin was quite sensitive to the political divisions within Russia regarding the recognition of Ukraine and its vast ethnic Russian population's independence; in any case, either Ukraine or Russia would place this bet on the key parts of the new union... Like the trigger for the August Event [9], the importance of the expected vote on the Union Treaty was confirmed by Yeltsin's preoccupation with the issue of the Ukrainian independence vote. He seemed determined to prevent Ukraine from joining Gorbachev's union. For the conspiratorial groups of that event and for Yeltsin, the new union was seen as a step toward bringing the Soviet Union to a new starting point and a new course—so they could not let it achieve its goal." In fact, facilitating Ukrainian independence was the key by which Yeltsin used the political scheme of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to defeat Gorbachev’s vision of a "de-communized" new union. Yeltsin’s commitment in the 1990s to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and "vigorous development of privatization" was based on the idea that "Marxism might leave some small traces. Now these dogmas are outdated and can be canceled. The same goes for Leninism."
If we briefly review the three representative historical stages from the establishment of the Yalta system to the collapse of the Soviet Union—the Stalin era, the Khrushchev and post-Khrushchev era, and the Gorbachev era of "New Thinking"—we can find that the Soviet Union sought peace to the maximum extent through different means, but all ultimately ended in failure. This is the starting point for re-evaluating the "civilizational" balance sheet of Eastern and Western humanity since World War II.
It was precisely during Ronald Reagan's presidency, in an attempt to recover from Cold War failures in the Third World, that the United States initiated the "proxy war" mode. The U.S. military failure in Vietnam led to the eruption of the domestic anti-war movement, forcing Kissinger to design a method of initiating "low-intensity warfare" through proxies, which became the banner of the Reagan Doctrine. To strengthen its legitimacy, the Reagan Doctrine introduced the theological concept of "evil" from religious discourse, calling for a strike against the "Evil Empire"—the Soviet Union. When the U.S. launched a jihad-style campaign against the "Evil Empire's" military occupation of Afghanistan, it recruited, organized, and trained Muslim fighters from across the globe to oppose the Soviet Union, using religious schools to instill a narrow theology of Jihadi Islam coupled with military training. It was precisely this late-Cold War strategy of co-opting radical Islamic forces that pushed them to the forefront of history, marked by the "9/11" attacks.
Consequently, after the Cold War ended, Samuel Huntington declared the Jihadi Islam nurtured by the United States to be the enemy of "civilization," providing a theoretical "golden cicada shedding its skin" [10] cloak for the world disorder manufactured by America. The war against terrorism was thus called a new "crusade" (or "holy war"). Huntington’s description of the "civilizational fault lines" in the post-Cold War world became the famous "Clash of Civilizations," because he believed the Cold War was a civil war within the Western world, while the post-Cold War era is a war between Western civilization and other "civilizations," particularly Islam. "Civilization" became a way to define the Other and judge friend from foe; it also became the Western world’s yardstick for human rights. Therefore, George W. Bush continued to invoke the rhetoric of "civilization" after 9/11: to stand with the United States was to stand with civilization. When "ancient hatreds" are viewed as the forces threatening the post-Cold War world, what is concealed is the United States' own contribution to manufacturing these enemies. The clash of civilizations has democratic boundaries—the essence of the "Clash of Civilizations" theory is a new mask for Western imperialist hegemony.
From the "End of History" cheering the victory over "Communism" to the seamless transition to the American civilizational theory of anti-terrorism, the socialist intellectual resources that once inspired the Third World's national-democratic liberation struggles against imperialism and colonialism have been suppressed within the negativity of the black-and-white/evil binary. The structural vision of class analysis on a global scale has given way to "identity" concerns regarding ethnicity, race, and minorities, manifesting as "cultural identity" theories of the Western Left and "clash of civilizations" theories of the Right. In this sense, Francis Fukuyama’s "End of History" possesses a contemporary reality and truth—it announced that upon the ruins of Cold War ideology, a new era of hot wars would begin!
Here, it is meaningful to reread the American past as recounted by President George H.W. Bush and his National Security Advisor Scowcroft in A World Transformed. In their confession: "When Reagan took office, U.S. policy shifted sharply toward confrontation. Initially, the Reagan administration viewed the Soviet Union as the 'Evil Empire' in its propaganda offensive. Détente was replaced by this concept: over a long historical process, wear down the Soviet Union; then accelerate its final collapse by increasing economic and political pressure. Reagan's strategy was to plan a dialogue with the Soviet Union from a position of advantage. His focus was on advanced weaponry that would exert as much influence as possible, rather than relying solely on negotiations." Even George H.W. Bush felt the Reagan administration's "Evil Empire" propaganda was excessive, fearing it would scare allies and make American leadership of the West difficult. In Scowcroft's view: "As long as what Gorbachev does serves our interests—moving things in the direction we desire—I agree with George Bush’s cautious cooperation with him. ... I firmly believe it is time to change our thinking and the fundamental ideas at the core of our strategy toward the Soviet Union. ... The first area of relation is in Eastern Europe. The initial changes toward reform there will provide us with an opportunity to utilize the Soviet 'New Thinking' to dismantle Soviet control over its satellite states."
On the issue of German reunification, and the negotiations with Gorbachev over whether a unified Germany would remain neutral or join NATO, George H.W. Bush described their complex calculations in convincing the Soviet Union that NATO territory would not expand eastward. Scowcroft keenly realized that the reunification of East and West Germany actually meant the end of the Yalta system, the end of the Second World War, and the end of the Cold War. From his perspective: "The strategic consequences of German reunification would, of course, cause alarm in the Soviet Union. Although the Soviet Union acquiesced to changes in Poland, Hungary, and even the Baltics, the disappearance of East Germany from under the Soviet nose was another matter entirely. Because East Germany was the cornerstone of the Warsaw Pact bloc, losing East Germany—or worse, East Germany becoming a member of NATO—would be a fatal threat to post-WWII Soviet military strategy and a 'withdrawal of firewood from under the cauldron' [11] blow to the Warsaw Pact. Socialist East Germany was the fruit of WWII, and the Soviet Union's most reliable military ally and important economic partner. If they lost it, if they accepted the fact of German reunification, it would mean the Soviet Union admitted the end of its hegemonic rule in Eastern Europe; it would mean Moscow admitted that the security net of satellite states it had constructed—the core of its security strategy—was completely torn apart."
The unified Germany had to become a member of NATO because the U.S. had military bases in West Germany; if Germany were neutral, "it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the U.S. to continue stationing troops in Europe. We needed Helmut Kohl's commitment that Germany would remain in the alliance and his consent for the U.S. to station troops on its territory. The fruits of German reunification, besides ending the division of Europe, were closely related to our vital interests." U.S. Secretary of State James Baker assured Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze that "NATO would become an alliance of more political and less military color," and repeatedly assured Gorbachev, and later Yeltsin, of NATO's non-expansion, its demilitarized transformation, and the signing of non-aggression declarations.
Gorbachev even believed that an agreement could be formed between the two opposing alliances of NATO and the Warsaw Pact: "Both alliances remain, and any country can join either one. 'NATO is an open organization,' he said, 'maybe we will join too.'" It is evident that Gorbachev’s political "naivety" was built upon the Soviet Union's "sincere" (yet illusory) peace initiatives. Today’s apologists say these verbal commitments were never formalized into an agreement and that since the Soviet Union has collapsed, NATO’s eastward expansion does not violate international law—furthermore, that Putin himself once asked to join NATO and was a promoter of NATO expansion. These ridiculous and absurd arguments still appear on Chinese-language social media to this day. By contrast, look at the 2015 Minsk Agreements aimed at resolving the conflict in the Donbas region: among the four signatories (Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany), only Putin was prepared to seriously implement the agreement, while the other three parties later stated it was merely to buy time for Ukraine. In particular, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated in an interview with the German weekly Die Zeit in December 2022, after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, that the agreement was to buy time to allow Ukraine to become stronger. This open admission of "deception" infuriated Putin; he had originally hoped for a peaceful resolution to the Donbas issue, but now his trust in the West has dropped to zero. Such "deception" has never actually stopped since the period surrounding the upheaval in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Putin’s hope to resolve Russia’s security issues through Ukrainian "neutrality"—just like Gorbachev’s hope to resolve them through "German" neutrality—has vanished into thin air. The only difference is: back then, they thought the problem was "Communism"; now they know the problem is the "Anglo-Saxons."
The 19th-century nationalism that the 20th-century socialist revolutions sought to bury—originating in Europe, the cradle of two world wars—is now dominating today's Russia-Ukraine conflict. The Orthodox cross has replaced the hammer and sickle, which is itself a result of the 20th-century Cold War. Today’s confrontation between East and West under the cross indeed makes the Russia-Ukraine conflict look more like a European "civil war." The outbreaks of both World Wars originated from European civil wars, but the result was a complete transformation of the global landscape. From the Nord Stream 2 pipeline incident to the bombing of the Crimean Bridge, aside from Ukraine in the flames of war, the greatest losses have been suffered by the EU and Russia at opposite ends of Europe. One must deal with an economic recession and energy crisis exacerbated by war, while the other is trapped by extreme, escalating sanctions led by the United States—unable to find an opportunity for peace negotiations. Meanwhile, the Israel-Palestine war and its tendency toward long-term conflict have further intensified the outbreak of an ideological civil war within the Global North.
"Pandora's box" has been opened—ever since the moment the Soviet Union disintegrated. Ukraine has continuously dismantled more than 5,000 statues of Lenin within its borders. Following the regime change of the 2014 Maidan Movement [12], it enacted legislation banning both Communism and Nazism while simultaneously granting legal recognition to the contributions made toward "national independence" by "nationalists," including Bandera followers [13]. The "de-communized" Polar Bear remains the national enemy of "Western civilization," even though it once willingly attempted to transform itself into a harmless, marmalade-loving "Paddington Bear"—having tea with the Queen at Buckingham Palace during the Platinum Jubilee of the British Empire's monarch to demonstrate how "Others" (migrants) from "Darkest Peru" share in the pax-Western civilization. Yet, after four requests to join NATO were rejected, no matter how it morphed, the "Sword of Damocles" forged by NATO remained suspended over its carotid artery. The "Polar Bear" from the "White Continent" finally understood that "the North Pole" is its original sin. The spell of the "Evil Empire" did not vanish with "de-communization." The "Polar Bear," even when integrated with capitalism, can never arrive at the Imperialist Paddington Station.
During the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Putin spoke with visiting UN Secretary-General António Guterres, citing the International Court of Justice’s ruling on Kosovo to support his own case—this marks the arrival of the so-called "New Cold War" era. From the Kosovo War to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Gaza War, where exactly does the dynamic mechanism of war lie?
The primary arguments of Aleksandr Dugin’s "Neo-Eurasianism" possess a meaningful connection across two intellectual resources. First, it resonates strongly with Huntington’s "Clash of Civilizations" theory. In this sense, it does not end but rather develops the "Clash of Civilizations"—albeit from the contrary standpoint of an "independent Russian civilization." As Dugin noted: "Samuel Huntington’s correctness has been confirmed in practice; he saw the future of the return of civilizations, while Fukuyama’s thesis regarding the global hegemony of the liberal West has been proven wrong. Therefore, Fukuyama can only helplessly lecture Ukrainian neo-Nazis, which is the last hope for globalists to prevent the arrival of multipolarity; in fact, Russia is fighting for multipolarity in Ukraine." What Dugin fails to identify is that the worldviews of Huntington and Fukuyama are merely the realistic and idealistic versions of the same lineage. Second, it echoes Germany’s Weimar era. "Neo-Eurasianism" is nothing more than a variant of the old European "balance of power" theory—which was destroyed after World War II by the Marshall Plan and NATO under American hegemony. This is precisely why the right-wing perspective of Carl Schmitt, the sovereignty theorist of the Weimar period (a defeated nation), could be resurrected in Moscow to become a representative of the so-called "Neo-Schmittianism." The reason is that Russia’s situation in the post-Cold War era can be seen as a 21st-century replay of the suppressed Weimar era. This is why Schmitt’s assertions of sovereignty for the German Empire, based on Western balance-of-power principles, have been forcefully revived in today’s Russia. The only difference is that Dugin expanded Schmitt’s perspective from Eurocentrism to a worldwide "balance of civilizations." The civilizational blocs he delineates also hint at the shadows of old traditional empires—"civilization" in this sense is actually the specter of war.
Appealing to an old civilizational world map to replace the post-war Yalta System results in creating the shadow of a Third World War. The destabilization and negation of the Yalta System was the greatest victory of the Cold War, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict is its consequence. In this sense, the process by which "Neo-Eurasianism," rising as a "nostalgic utopia," returns to the embrace of Orthodox imperial civilization is bound to be bloody. This is exactly why Huntington’s civilizational fault lines overlap with Neo-Eurasianism. The clash of civilizations and nationalism have become the two dominant narratives explaining war in the post-Cold War era, backed by the joint advancement of "civilization," "jihad," and so-called "democracy."
When American liberal scholars condemn Schmittianism, what they cannot explain is why right-wing conservatism has similarly revived in Europe and the United States. What needs to be interrogated are the historical conditions that created this situation; this is the meaningful intellectual genealogy worthy of attention. Only by linking the global intellectual genealogy of right-wing conservatism can one penetrate the historical mystery behind it: the vortex effect of the historical black hole caused by the "Great Transformation" (the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist states).
III. "De-communization," Equilibrium Theory, and a War Foretold
On April 12, 1945, U.S. President Roosevelt passed away. On May 9, Stalin published his "Message to the People," announcing the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. At that time, he was still planning to reach an agreement and vision for world peace with Roosevelt: "The great banner of freedom for all peoples and peace between all peoples will fly over Europe." Yet only three months later, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb in human history on Hiroshima—the Cold War had actually begun. Its purpose was to deter the Soviet Union from involvement in Japan, as Japan’s defeat was already a foregone conclusion and did not require the "blessing" of the atomic bomb.
On March 5, 1946, Churchill went to Westminster College, the alma mater of President Truman, to deliver his "Iron Curtain" speech at Fulton. This was merely an open recognition of this Western-led action. The speech was ironically titled "The Sinews of Peace." In it, he regarded the alliance of the English-speaking world as the post-war "sinew of peace": "We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence... neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organization will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States." By dividing the world into two sides of an Iron Curtain based on "English," the "de-communizing" Western imperialist civilizational racism, positioning itself as liberal democracy, began—initiated by the Cold War.
On March 13, 1946, Stalin severely condemned this speech through an interview with a Pravda correspondent, calling it a dangerous act, a "racial theory" inciting war, and a stance aligned with Hitler. Given that even in today’s Chinese-speaking world, people are more familiar with Churchill’s speech, the following passage is worth revisiting: "Mr. Churchill now stands on the platform of the war-mongers, and Mr. Churchill is not alone here; he has friends not only in Britain but also in the United States. It should be noted that Mr. Churchill and his friends in this respect bear a striking resemblance to Hitler and his associates. Hitler began his business of unleashing war by disseminating a racial theory, announcing that only German-speakers were the superior race. Mr. Churchill also begins his business of unleashing war by disseminating a racial theory, insisting that only English-speaking nations are the superior nations, charged with the mission of deciding the fate of the world... In fact, Mr. Churchill and his friends in Britain and the United States present non-English speaking nations with something like an ultimatum: voluntarily recognize our rule, and only then will all be well; otherwise, war is inevitable."
Within the United States, the line of Democratic Vice President Henry Wallace, who advocated cooperation with the Soviet Union rather than Britain, was rejected. In September 1946, a 50-page report on U.S.-Soviet relations, ordered by Truman and written by special presidential advisor Clark Clifford, was sealed as top-secret for 20 years. The report declared that "the United States must possess strong military forces, strong enough to deter the Soviet Union." This tone is familiar—it has been Israel's policy toward Palestine since the 1970s.
Today, the "glory" of the Soviet Red Army’s victory over Fascism has become a thing of the past. The "delusion" that Hitler failed to complete has been perfectly realized by the American containment strategy. The "era of peaceful development" that Stalin once eagerly hoped for never occurred; instead, an imposed Cold War arrived. His name, along with that of his arch-enemy Hitler, became the incarnation of "Satan"—once this narrative completed its Cold War mission in the Western mass media, the crimes against humanity committed during the two European-led World Wars escaped historical moral judgment. Germany and Japan, the originators of World War II, transformed into the front lines of democracy/Cold War under American protection, while the Soviet Red Army’s contribution to the global anti-Fascist war was continuously eroded and negated by the victors of the Cold War. History is written by the winners. The essence of "containment" is to destroy the legitimacy of the Soviet Union and the entire socialist camp. Therefore, it is necessarily a life-and-death struggle involving culture and ideology. There are many reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the key factor was the failure to break through the unfair strategic position imposed by the U.S.-led containment policy and the inability to escape the (military) heavy industry-oriented wartime economic model.
Attributing the Hot and Cold Wars of the 20th century to individuals as demons has not, and cannot, bring permanent peace to this world. Hitler died, but the Cold War inherited and completed his "mission." Stalin died and the Soviet Union disintegrated, yet the far-right forces of racism and fascism are undergoing a full-scale revival in Europe today, with far-right party forces continuously breaking through in the European political landscape. That new "Hitlers" are returning is no longer alarmist—genocidal slaughter is precisely the result of a century of "de-communization." Because the core of imperialism is the racial issue of civilizational superiority, when imperialist wars are conducted through genocide, they force the resistance to take the form of national liberation. After World War II, after the wave of national democratic liberation, and after the "post-Cold War," this logic remains valid.
In 1937, under the crisis conditions preceding the outbreak of World War II, E.H. Carr wrote a preface to his The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations. He cautioned: "When the passion of war is high, it is easy and very dangerous to attribute the disaster of war entirely to the ambition and arrogance of a few individuals, without seeking to investigate the roots of war further. Even when the flames of war are flying, it remains of practical importance to investigate the underlying causes and significant reasons for war, rather than merely considering the personal and immediate causes. Only twenty years and two months after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, peace broke down, and the European nations were involved in a second great war. If peace returns to the world, the lessons of the breakdown of peace should be seriously reflected upon. If the arrangements that end the war destroy only the rulers of German National Socialism, without removing the conditions that bred the phenomenon of National Socialism, then such arrangements will inevitably fail to last, and the tragedy of the 1919 settlement will be repeated." This book is considered a founding work of the "Realist school" of international relations, but Carr's realist caution was not remembered by the post-Cold War world, nor by the so-called "Offensive Realism" of the famous American strategist John Mearsheimer. Since 2022, the giant wings of Mars have once again brushed past Europe—what Brzezinski called America’s "democratic bridgehead." Will history repeat itself?
Ultimately, both Russia and Ukraine are products of the "de-communization" following the Soviet Union's Cold War defeat. Therefore, what is more significant is the historical inquiry into the relationship between "de-communization" and "Western hegemonic ideology." Israel's current dominant position is also related to the "Great Transformation" of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The Russia-Ukraine conflict sits on the extension line of the 20th-century Cold War "de-communization"; it is the latest result. This is also why it reveals, in a regressive manner, an old face in a new century—the face of the 19th century.
The post-World War II American version of "balance of power" theory is precisely an intervention in the global situation centered on American interests; it manifested as the "containment" of the Soviet Union after the war and the "containment" of China today. When John Mearsheimer evaluated George Kennan, he interpreted the "containment theory" as an American balance of power theory, while Mearsheimer used "offensive realism" to negate it—arguing that the rise of the United States was the result of breaking the European balance. As a contemporary interpreter of American behavior, he criticizes the "liberal hegemony" behind containment theory as mere rhetoric, noting that liberals often wrap their astute and pragmatic actions in liberal parlance: they speak liberally but act realistically. If they adopt liberal policies inconsistent with realist logic, they always end up full of regret. In his view, after the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe [14], liberal hegemony existed in a unipolar world; in the absence of an opponent, liberalism and realism overlapped to become the reality of American global military intervention. Only in such circumstances can "universalist" ideology play a role in reshaping the world, and precisely because of this, liberal states become mired in endless war: "The militaristic behavior of a state will almost certainly eventually threaten its own liberal values. External liberalism leads to internal illiberalism. Finally, even if liberal states can achieve their goals—spreading democracy everywhere, promoting economic exchange, and establishing international institutions—they will not bring peace." Therefore, the problem Mearsheimer seeks to address is precisely the actual consequences: after the collapse of the Soviet Union, American global intervention was concentrated mainly in former Soviet regions and the Middle East (a Soviet sphere of influence)—exactly where today’s Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Israel-Palestine war broke out. Continuous low-intensity proxy wars have caused liberal ideology to constantly go bankrupt and implode; this is the brutal reality under the so-called "realist" perspective.
What Mearsheimer has actually reconstructed is the international politics of nation-states from the perspective of Darwinian struggle for survival; the primary subject of "offensive realism" is war. Specifically based on naked American national interests, he opposes the hijacking of the state by the Israel lobby because it has overdrawn liberal ideology; he opposes the Russia-Ukraine conflict because it hinders the ultimate showdown between the United States and China. Exhausting all efforts to "contain" China is where the fundamental interests of the United States lie in the 21st century, within which the strenuous "defense of Taiwan" is the necessary path for American "offensive realism." In this sense, "offensive realism" is nothing more than an upgraded version of 21st-century US imperialist containment strategy.
Whether it is the old or new balance of power theory, both require arms races or even war as means of containment; the essence is the military "guardianship" of an unequal world pattern by power politics. The former was manifested in the two World Wars under the "imbalance" of the European colonial-imperialist system; the latter is manifested in military interventions under US neo-colonial hegemony, as well as the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Israel-Palestine war under the shadow of a Third World War. Whether in theory or practice, the "balance of power" is essentially the source of war, because balance is precisely a military result and a source of state terrorism. The Cold War and "Holy Wars" launched by the United States, as well as the Palestinian crisis created by Israel, are all classic cases of "offensive realism." This is also why Mearsheimer wants to tear off the liberal packaging and, from a "depoliticized" political stance, insists that containing China must be the primary objective. In an interview with the independent news site The Grayzone on July 23, 2023, Mearsheimer continued to maintain his thesis on the end of peace: "From the perspective of containing a dangerous Russia, NATO expansion before 2014 was irrational. In fact, it was precisely Russian weakness that allowed the West to shove the first two phases of NATO’s eastward expansion down Moscow's throat in 1999 and 2004, and then allowed the George W. Bush administration to think in 2008 that Russia could be forced to accept Georgia and Ukraine joining the organization. But this assumption proved wrong, and when the 2014 Ukraine crisis broke out, the West suddenly began to portray Russia as a dangerous enemy that must be contained, or even weakened." As an "apocalyptic war" against "autocracy and aggression that the West cannot afford to lose," Ukraine has become a Western fortress on the Russian border. He predicts that today's "war for survival" among the three parties makes peace, especially lasting peace, no longer possible.
If one rereads the works of American right-wing strategic researchers after the collapse of the Soviet Union, one finds that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is actually a war that was repeatedly foretold and heralded in advance. Clearly, the hegemonic forces in today's world political landscape did not want to avoid it, so it was bound to break out. Its motives and decisions were not only planted at the time of the Soviet collapse but were warned of by Stalin at the moment the Iron Curtain descended—this is why the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a war that was repeatedly heralded beforehand, and it is the root of today's "New Cold War." It simply needed to be opened up and brought back to the light of day.
To understand the global pattern of today's "New Cold War," there are two urgent issues that need reinterpretation:
First, due to the unilateral propaganda of the Western camp as the winner of the Cold War and their control over the narrative of "Cold War history," the impact of the birth and dissolution of the Soviet Union on today's world pattern has not been effectively evaluated. The historical experience of its positive and negative aspects has not been treated fairly, which also keeps people's understanding of the 21st century restricted within the Cold War framework, predicated on the century-long stigmatization of "de-communization." Without eliminating such stigma, world peace is impossible. So-called "post-Cold War" was merely a celebration day for the winners of the Cold War within the world pattern shaped by the Cold War; the "New Cold War" is precisely the third phase of the Cold War. To oppose the "New Cold War," one must re-examine the entire historical process of the Cold War, transcend the unidirectional hegemonic narrative of the "victors," and open up a path for new historical possibilities.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict is not the burial of the Soviet Union but a reminder that the "spectre" of Leninism has not departed. In order to carry out a holy crusade against this "spectre," all the powers of old and new Europe, and old and new imperialism, have united. It has already been recognized by all the powers of Europe as a power in itself, even if this "power" has lost its political entity. The failure of the Soviet Union does not prove the failure of socialism and peace; on the contrary, the containment and suppression of socialism is the grave of world peace. The October Revolution itself took "peace, land, and bread" as its appeal, essentially using "revolution" to win peace and development for the masses of workers and peasants; this was the starting point of Russian socialism.
On August 30, 2022, Mikhail Gorbachev passed away. Western media thanked and remembered him for bringing a "bloodless" "end to the Cold War" to the world. However, this narrative ignores the two Middle East wars, the Kosovo War, the Afghan War, and the Iraq War around the time of the Soviet collapse, leading up to today's Russia-Ukraine conflict—the "bloodshed" brought by the end of the Cold War has actually never ceased. "Bloodless" is a judgment based on the Western position; Soviet blood has been flowing all along, and today it seems it has not yet run dry. When World War I ended, the Entente Powers forced Germany to accept the Treaty of Versailles—what were the roots of the "forced peace" that followed: the short-lived Weimar Republic and the rise of Fascism in Germany? These have not been truly held to account. The rise of Israeli Zionism is also a link in this historical chain. Today, the "de-communized" Cold War has ended, but from the Kosovo War to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the wars of the post-Cold War era have never stopped. How exactly is this long chain of war dynamics transmitted? From the Cold War to the post-Cold War and then to the "New Cold War," what is the consistent cyclical logic in the relationship between the US and the Soviet Union/Russia? It is time to turn back and investigate the "dark side" of Cold War history.
For the reasons stated above, the "containment strategy" being forged by the United States and its allies points not only to post-Cold War Russia but even more to "Communist" China. In this sense, the so-called "New Cold War" remains a continuation of the "ancient argument" of the 20th century. The collapse of the Soviet Union meant the end of what John Gaddis called the "Long Peace" after the Second World War; it also meant that the United States and its Western camp are restarting a "New Cold War" definition for China, much like the Truman Doctrine "defined" the start of containment against the Soviet Union through Kennan's "Long Telegram" after World War II. Whether socialist China can break out of the descending "New Cold War" iron cage and continue to be the ballast of world peace is the key to the 21st-century world political landscape.
Second, from Stalin, Khrushchev, and Gorbachev to Putin, the door for the Soviet Union and Russia to seek peaceful development has been forcibly closed time and again. This is precisely the obscured history of the Cold War (and post-Cold War); it is this "de-communization" state of affairs that catalyzed the rise of today's right-wing "Eurasianism." Merely criticizing Nazi Fascism without examining the hegemony of the "Treaty of Versailles" dominated by the Great Powers cannot prevent war—this was the lesson of 20th-century Europe and a lesson for all of humanity.
Today, the shadow of "Versailles" has not disappeared; it has simply shifted from the defeated nation of the Hot War, Germany, to the defeated nation of the Cold War, Russia. History is repeating itself: with the negotiation premise of George H.W. Bush's promise that NATO would not expand eastward, starting from Gorbachev's promise of German reunification and the Soviet withdrawal from Eastern Europe, leading all the way to collapse—what was received in exchange was "color revolutions" and NATO's eastward expansion all the way. The method of extorting peace will always lead to war because it is predicated on inequality. History has entered a new round of the cycle, but it remains a tragedy—it has not ended; it is just an extended version, an extended version of the Cold War. On September 13, 2023, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a speech at Johns Hopkins University titled "The Power and Purpose of American Diplomacy in a New Era," announcing that the "post-Cold War order" has ended: "The People's Republic of China constitutes the most significant long-term challenge because it not only wants to reshape the international order but increasingly has the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do so. And Beijing and Moscow are joining forces... to make the world safe for autocracy through their 'no limits partnership'." His speech expressed the arrogance and anxiety from the perspective of the Cold War winner—the post-Cold War era, moving toward global disorder, needs a new "Hot War" and "Cold War"!
At the end of 2015 (precisely during the signing of the Minsk Agreements), Bruno Maçães, who had served as Portugal's Secretary of State for European Affairs, decided to take a six-month trip across Eurasia. He found bookstores filled with books about the dangers of Russia, the rise of China, and the crisis of the EU, but they were treated in isolation from one another. Therefore, he wanted to explore the interaction between the three through field investigation, and in this way, he wrote a book, The Dawn of Eurasia: On the Trail of the New World Order, which represented the growing interest in "Eurasian" discourse at the time. In the author's view then, the axis of global politics and economics was shifting eastward; the affairs of Asia, the Middle East, and Russia were suddenly beginning to affect every European and American "to a degree more profound than they could imagine." This is the second era after the age of globalization, namely the "Eurasian Era," characterized by "a permanently unstable combination of heterogeneous elements." A book review in the Financial Times at the time considered it a pioneering work showing that "the concept of Eurasia is jumping out of the history books to once again become a central issue of contemporary political concern."
In my view, this book was actually a prophecy of the Russia-Ukraine conflict that shocked the world in early 2022. Having finished the book, what I cannot forget for a long time is the story told of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan—a personal account from the author's neighbor:
He slowly recalled the horrifying details of close-quarters combat on beautiful but dangerous hills, and then he told me a story he must have thought summarized all the horror. At that time, three Armenian soldiers were captured on the mountain—a father and two sons. The commander said he could do whatever he wanted with them. He offered to let one of the soldiers go, provided all three of them agreed on which one to let go. The two brothers chose their father, but the father could not choose either of his sons, let alone save himself.
"What do you think I did?"
I thought Rustam wanted me to understand that even in the worst of times, humanity can survive, so I answered that he must have decided to release all three.
Rustam looked at me for a while and smiled.
"My friend, after your travels, you need to see a doctor. The Armenians killed my brother and my friends, would I let them leave?"
...
"You released the two sons?"
“No, I killed all three of them. I gave them a chance to choose, but they didn't take it.” “This is Azerbaijan. This place is full of bone-chilling war stories and memories of the massacre of the Armenian minority. In turn, Azerbaijani refugees fleeing Armenia tell tragic stories of the murder and rape of their compatriots. In Azerbaijan, horror has been sublimated into songs and poetry, sung widely across all strata of society.” [15]
This story, which “encapsulates all the horrors,” chillingly announces the arrival of the “Eurasian era” defined by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Moving from the stories of Armenia/Azerbaijan to Russia/Ukraine, it also marks the nature of global violence in the post-Cold War era: ethnic hatred as a cycle of violence—the ultimate impasse of human existence. Its starting point was precisely the upheaval in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. This historical point, cheered as the “end of ideology,” was the moment the “boomerang” of US imperialism took flight to harvest the world. From the moment it was thrown, it has never ceased its whirling, continuously pushing the world toward the dead end of war, forcing every person on this planet to strain their ears to listen to the echoes of its whistling wind—the sound of the wings of the God of Death flapping, and the emotional melody of ancient oral tradition dancing together with social media: the source of media violence.
IV. Returning to Leninism: The National Question and World Peace
Around the time of the First World War, Lenin reflected extensively on the national question, debating and elucidating it within the international socialist camp, and subjected social-chauvinism—that is, bourgeois nationalism—to severe critique. Lenin’s 1913 publication, Critical Remarks on the National Question, served as a summative document. It emphasized the use of class concepts to critique, analyze, and transcend the national question. It focused its criticism on the Jewish nationalist “Bund” (General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia) and the “national-cultural autonomy” theory of the Austrian Social Democratic Party. As Lenin noted: “The principle of nationality is historically inevitable in bourgeois society, and, taking this society into due account, the Marxist fully recognizes the historical legitimacy of national movements. That recognition, however, must not be allowed to become an apology for nationalism; it must be very strictly limited to what is progressive in such movements, in order that this recognition may not lead to bourgeois ideology obscuring proletarian consciousness.”
For Lenin, wars fought by the people of colonies and semi-colonies to resist oppression by imperialist powers—as national wars of independence and liberation in “defense of the fatherland”—were wars for democracy. Socialists must support them; otherwise, they are not socialists but chauvinists. National independence in this sense cannot be replaced by “cultural-national autonomy,” and national self-determination must be linked to the era of imperialism resulting from capitalist development. However, this did not mean the socialist movement supported the division of humanity into many small states. On the contrary, the goal of the socialist movement is to eliminate national isolation and promote the fusion of nations. Social Democrats in oppressed nations should prioritize the unity of the workers of the oppressed nation with the workers of the oppressing nation. The purpose of national self-determination is not separation but national integration. Yet only by recognizing the right to national self-determination can the proletariat guarantee the full unity of workers of all nations and promote a genuine democratic rapprochement between nations. In this sense, the overall interests of socialism stand above national self-determination; this is the fundamental principle of internationalism and socialism. One must be vigilant against the bourgeoisie of oppressed nations turning the slogan of national liberation into a means of deceiving workers and reaching reactionary agreements with the ruling-class bourgeoisie.
After the “July Days” [16] in Russia, while living in arduous exile in Finland—wanted by the Provisional Government for the “German spy case” and facing the constant threat of arrest or death—Lenin began writing The State and Revolution. He sought to answer the urgent questions regarding the state that the revolution had to confront, intending the work to be his political testament in case of misfortune. In the preface to the first edition, Lenin pointed out that the imperialist war had intensified the combination of monopoly capitalism and the state, and the school of social-chauvinism was gaining dominance within socialist parties worldwide. “Socialist leaders” were adopting a cringing, fawning attitude toward the interests of not only “their own” national bourgeoisie but also “their own” states. It was precisely in this sense that the question of the “state” acquired political and practical urgency. Therefore, on the one hand, it was necessary to draw a clear line against imperialism and social-chauvinism on the question of the state. In Lenin’s view, the democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism. Once capital has gained possession of this best shell, it can consolidate and establish its power so securely that no change of persons, institutions, or parties can shake it. In the imperialist stage, the state apparatus and its officials and military institutions expand with unprecedented strength. On the other hand, a clear line must also be drawn against anarchism. Socialist democracy must be predicated on the state apparatus of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In this sense, democracy is a form of the state. This is because, in the historical stage of socialist development, bourgeois right—particularly in the stage of distribution—will inevitably persist. This is the material basis upon which the state cannot yet wither away; it requires the state to protect the public ownership of the means of production and to protect equality of labor and equality of distribution. What Lenin argued for was the political nature of the socialist state: the process of advancing the democratic participation of laborers from formal equality to substantive equality. This is the significance of the dictatorship of the proletariat as distinct from the bourgeois democratic republic. To protect and perfect socialist democracy, the political nature of the state must be maintained.
After the October Revolution, Lenin’s reflections became the fundamental content of the “Decree on Peace” issued by the new Soviet regime. By using the “Decree on Peace” as a weapon against social-chauvinism and as an inheritance and development of European socialist history and tradition, Lenin and the Soviets he led provided a new cosmopolitan anti-war vision of peace upon the ruins of an unprecedented world war. It was precisely in this sense, upon the ruins of the Second International as the failure of European democratic socialism, that Leninism was born! It was a critique of and a commitment to the history and current situation of European socialism after the First World War, a continuation of the European socialist tradition, and—furthermore—the inheritance and development of Marxism as the culmination of European socialism.
The First World War was an era of total alliance between capitalism and nationalism. Not only did it cause capitalism to appear in the guise of state capitalism and imperialism, but it also caused the European socialist tradition to degenerate into social-chauvinism, merging with imperialism. The imperialism of Old Europe, rooted in colonialism, was losing its moral authority. The United States, under the banner of opposition to colonialism, sought to seize the global hegemony of the British Empire. As freedom, democracy, and human rights became the new universal values, the first thing they had to face was the challenge of socialist internationalism proposed by Lenin. In fact, US President Woodrow Wilson’s theory of Fourteen Points on national self-determination was introduced primarily to allow the United States—which had gained immense benefits during the First World War—to achieve political and cultural leadership in the post-war global hegemonic system.
To counter the global influence of Soviet Russia’s “Decree on Peace,” Wilson announced his “Fourteen Points,” which included national self-determination, in a speech to the US Congress on January 8, 1918. As Geoffrey Barraclough realized when discussing the turning points of 20th-century world history: “Although it seemed two years earlier that President Wilson had positioned himself as the Western champion of anti-Bolshevism, both he and Lenin recognized from the start that they were competing for the votes of humanity. It was precisely to prevent Lenin from obtaining a monopoly on the blueprint for the post-war world that Wilson proposed the famous Fourteen Points in January 1918. The French socialist Albert Thomas wrote: ‘It is either Wilson or Lenin, either democracy or Bolshevism... people must make a choice between the two.’” [17]
After the First World War, the struggle for the political program of world pacifism took place between Leninism and Wilsonianism—between a United States about to move toward imperialism and a Russia about to move toward the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This is the "Grand History" that urgently needs to be revisited today; it is the "Great Divergence" that determined world history. The 21st-century Russia-Ukraine conflict sits on the extension of the battle between Wilsonianism and Leninism—that is, between two different theories of national self-determination. The first defines boundaries by ethnic nationalism, while the second is predicated on the independence, liberation, and fusion of oppressed nations.
Today’s socialism with Chinese characteristics is the greatest historical achievement of the magnificent national and democratic liberation movements of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples under the leadership of the Third International founded by Lenin. It is the embodiment of the deepening of world history opened by Leninism, the most important victory of the integration of Marxism-Leninism with China’s specific realities, and the most important victory of world socialism. In this sense, China’s “patriotism” based on the system of regional ethnic autonomy cannot be equated with Western ethnic “nationalism.” Its socialist nature cannot be denied; this is the institutional guarantee and economic basis for discussing the civilizational roots of the Chinese path today. Discussions of civilization need to be incorporated into the path of world socialism. The establishment of New China and Chinese socialist practice provide the institutional guarantee and economic basis for discussing the Chinese path and civilizational roots. In this sense, Chinese civilization is the result of the fusion of Chinese and Western history, the prerequisite for exchange between today’s China and the world, and an equal subject in the mutual learning between civilizations—socialist values themselves are the result of integrating ancient and modern, domestic and foreign human civilizations. Based on this, it is necessary to draw a clear line against Western theories of civilizational hierarchy and conflict, to establish a global Southern international united front and people’s front against hegemony/neo-colonialism and for world peace, and to reshape the historical logic and strategic map from internationalism to a community with a shared future for humanity. This is the key to building China’s international communication capacity and the historical landscape in which a “new form of human civilization” will inevitably unfold. The three global initiatives proposed by the Communist Party of China—Development, Security (Peace), and Civilization—are, in fact (and must be), a “trinity.”
Only by clarifying this new contemporary global strategic landscape can one understand (or bridge) the historical logic from socialism/internationalism to a community with a shared future for humanity. After the First World War, the salvoes of the October Revolution brought us Marxism. The Communist Party of China is a Marxist-Leninist party. Its history of over a century proves that only socialism can save China and its people. This is manifest in the arduous forging of social equality and the broadest system of people's political participation, which is also the source of China’s comprehensive national strength and international status today. Socialism, departing from Europe, became “incarnate” [18] in China. How can today’s China stand upon and defend its achievements in socialist revolution and construction, break the hegemonic logic of the Cold War/post-Cold War/New Cold War, and rebuild the leadership of socialist ideology on a global scale? How can it become the ballast for peace and development in the 21st century amid a world fraught with geopolitical conflicts? How can the socialist connotation of Chinese-path modernization provide development opportunities and choices for the Global South to build, govern, and share together, and rebuild the foundation of an academic/political united front based on socialist ideas worldwide?
Returning to Leninism is the only way forward.