The suggestion of a possible ultra-imperialism is normally attributed to
Karl Kautsky, the leading theoretician of the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the era of
Imperial Germany. Kautsky coined the term in 1914, but he had speculated on the issue several times in 1912 already. He postulated that in the field of international relations a "stage [approaches], in which the competition among states will be disabled by their cartel relationship". Thus, Kautsky's ultra-imperialism concept was shaped by the idea of
cartels made up by states for the purpose of international policy. However, the basic idea of a possible pacification of imperialism did not really originate from Kautsky. The British left-liberal
John Atkinson Hobson had written in 1902 in a similar context about a potential inter-imperialism which could be established by a combination of great powers (combination or combine then being used to designate
cartels). In 1907,
Karl Liebknecht stated in his brochure
Militarismus und Antimilitarismus that "a trustification of all actual and potential colonies among the colonial powers, so to speak, [...] a disabling of the colonial rivalry among the states [could take place in the future], as it occurred to some extent for the private competition among capitalist entrepreneurs in the cartels and trusts". On the eve of
World War I, these peace-loving social-democrats and liberals in Europe hoped that the great powers—beginning with the British Empire and the German Reich—would unite into a
states' cartel or a combination of states giving the rivals organization and reconciliation. The expression
super-imperialism first appeared in November 1914 as an inaccurate translation of the newly coined German term
Ultra-Imperialismus. William E. Bohn, the translator of
Karl Kautsky’s article "Der Imperialismus" ("The Imperialism"), seemed to believe that the terms
Kartell and
Ultra-Imperialismus were not reasonable for the audience of the
International Socialist Review, an American Marxist journal. Bohn faced a double problem as
cartels were much less familiar in the United States than the concern-like, tauter organized
trust entities and the word
ultra, which in English means "exaggerated" or "extreme". Thus, he paraphrased Kautsky's ideas in terms more familiar to American readers, somewhat distorting Kautsky's statement. Together with the revival of the imperialism debates in the 1970s, the term super-imperialism recovered, but was modified in its content. It served now to describe the domination by the super-power United States within a system of
imperialism in which the other imperialist powers were set back in their abilities and thus were second-class.
Super-imperialism is hence a
Marxist term with two possible meanings. It can refer: • to the
hegemony of an
imperialist great power over its weaker rivals, which in this context become sub-imperialisms • to a comprehensive supra-structure above a set of theoretically equal-righted imperialist states. This meaning is the older one but had become rare by the middle of the 20th century. Since the same time, the German term
Ultraimperialismus was translated into English literally with
ultra-imperialism and was now used to describe a rather equal-righted inter-imperialist cooperation. == Karl Kautsky's statements in 1914 ==