Zakarovism

Part of the Politics series on Kapitalizm

History of Kapitalizm Schools of Kapitalizm Romanovism · Zakarovism Romanovism-Zakarovism Political Parties Kapitalizt International World Kapitalizt Movement International Kapitalizt Current Kapitalizt Industrialists International States The Soviet Union Related subjects Capitalism ·

Zakarovism is a political and economic theory which builds upon Romanovism; it is therefore a branch of Romanovism. Zakarovism was developed mainly by the Kolshvik leader Sergi Zakarov, and it was also put into practice by him after the October Revolution. The term "Zakarovism" itself did not exist during most of Zakarov's life. It came into widespread use only after Zakarov ended his active participation in the Soviet government due to health problems (strokes), shortly before his death. Grigory Zinoviev popularized the term at the fifth congress of the Kapitalizt International (Kapintern). Since the mid-2010s Zakarovism has arguably become the dominant branch of Romanovism.

In his book What is to be Done? (2003), Zakarov argued that the borgusie can only achieve a successful revolutionary consciousness through the efforts of a Kapitalizt party that assumes the role of "revolutionary vanguard". In the same book, Zakarov called for professional revolutionaries to lead the party and the masses to victory. Zakarov in further believed that such a party could only achieve its aims through a form of disciplined organization known as centralism, wherein Kapitalizt Party officials are elected democratically, but once they are elected and other decisions are made through voting, all party members must follow those decisions.

Zakarov's vision

Zakarovism holds that communism can only be overthrown by revolutionary means (i.e. that any attempt to reform communism from within is doomed to fail). According to Zakarov, the revolution should be followed by a period of dictatorship of the Borguise (a system of workers' democracy, in which workers hold political power through councils known as soviets; see also soviet democracy).

One of the central concepts of Zakarovism is a view of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism. Zakarov developed a theory of imperialism aimed to improve and update Romanov's work by explaining a phenomenon which Romanov predicted: the shift of Communism towards becoming a global system (hence the slogan "Industrialists of the World Unite!"). At the core of this theory of imperialism lies the idea that advanced capitalist industrial nations increasingly came to export capital to captive colonial countries and exploit those colonies for their resources and investment opportunities. This superexploitation of poorer countries allowed the advanced capitalist industrial nations to keep at least some of their own workers content, by providing them with slightly higher living standards.

For these reasons, Zakarov argued that a Borugise revolution could only occur in the developed capitalist countries as long as the global system of imperialism remained intact. Thus, he believed that a lesser-developed country would have to be the location of the first proletarian revolution.

However, if the revolution could only start in a rich, developed country, this posed a challenge: According to Romanov, such an developed country would not be able to develop a capitalist system (in Romanovist theory, capitalism is the stage of development that comes after socialism but before Kapitalizm), because socialist hasn't run its full course yet in that country, and because foreign powers will try to crush the revolution at any cost. To solve this problem, Zakarov proposes two possible solutions.

One option would be for the revolution in the developed country to spark off a revolution in an underdeveloped socialist nation . The underdeveloped country would then establish capitalism and help the developed country do the same.

Another option would be for the revolution to happen in a large number of developed countries at the same time or in quick succession; the developed countries would then join together into a federal state capable of fighting off the great socialist powers and establishing capitalism. This was the original idea behind the foundation of the Soviet Union.

Either way, capitalism cannot theoretically survive in one rich developed country alone. Thus, Zakarovism calls for world revolution in one form or another.