Forgetting about kitsch novelty items what Russian made consumer goods are in your house? Your MP3 player or your TV? Probably not unless you are incredibly eccentric or are a Russian who is keen to support local industry and are incredibly eccentric. This thought occurred to me last week when we were discussing the Socialist Resistance statement on the Caucasus. The question was raised of whether or not we can now describe Russia as an imperialist power. Now in view of the fact that the discussion was a bit impromptu it would be a bit daft to say that any firm conclusions were reached. One strand of thinking reasons that Russia is part of the G8, has nuclear weapons, exports large amounts of capital and has had a capitalist restoration from which has emerged a self conscious ruling class and gangster bourgeoisie which won its position through exploiting its place in or relationships with the Soviet bureaucracy.
All these things are factually correct but at the moment unconvincing. The capitalist restoration has opened the Russian economy to the world market and in return Russian exports have more in common with Nigeria or Saudi Arabia. The private oil and gas companies can make fabulous profits but this model of economic development more closely resembles a neo-colony (which Russia clearly is not) that an imperial power. According to the Economist fuel and gas accounted for 64.8% of Russian exports in 2006, metals 13.8% and machinery and equipment a paltry 5.8% and it doesn’t mention how much of that was sent back because it didn’t work properly. By contrast 
machinery and equipment accounted for 50.5% of imports. At the same time the CIA estimates that per capita GDP is $14,700 / £7950 and while they might have an axe to grind the figure can be taken as reasonably accurate. By this measure Russia is just ahead of Malaysia and Chile but behind Botswana and New Caledonia.
This would explain the large scale export of capital. There is not too much in the domestic economy in which it can be profitably invested so it makes more sense to spend the money on property in the south of France or English football teams. Russian capital is not being invested abroad to develop non-competitive or complementary branches of production and nowhere in the world can one reasonably claim that Russian capital is playing a dominant role in another state’s economy other than in those regions where the lines between former Soviet businesses and the new capitalist firms were blurred.
Xerxes was having bas reliefs made to demonstrate that the Persian Empire was receiving tribute from Turkey, China and all points in between 2500 years ago. We don’t use “imperialism” in the same way to describe that society as we would use it to describe contemporary British or United States imperialism. It was a much more underdeveloped social formation . The Russian ruling class has shaken off the stupor of the Yeltsin years and is now militantly embarking on a campaign to secure what its sees as its state’s periphery against the U.S. which currently occupies foreign territory in the form of military bases in sixty-nine countries. There is nothing supportable or progressive about the Russian government or its society and its affirmation of the rights of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is manifestly self serving. However it is much too premature to label a third rate economy utterly reliant on exporting raw materials as imperialist even if it is trying to incorporate neighbouring regions and has a huge, largely useless, army.
Liam redux 
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