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 Tibet 1903 - Weapons of Mass Deception

In one of the most inglorious episodes of the British Empire Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, sent troops under Francis Younghusband to invade Tibet  in order to create a buffer zone against the Russians.  The pretext was that Tibet was being armed with Russia-manufactured weapons. The mission ended with the massacre of Chumik Shenko when the rifle-bearing British mowed down hundreds of Tibetan Buddhists, debarred by their religion from killing their enemies. Even Younghusband , an archetypal British army officer wedded to the ideals of Empire, was shocked and demoralised by what happened.

They found just two rifles in Tibet.

IMPERIALISM THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM

       Imperialism is the epoch of finance capital and of monopolies, which introduce everywhere the striving for domination, not for freedom. Whatever the political system, the result of these tendencies is everywhere reaction and an extreme intensification of antagonisms in this field. Particularly intensified become the yoke of national oppression and the striving for annexations, i.e., the violation of national independence (for annexation is nothing but the violation of the right of nations to self-determination).

Hilferding rightly notes the connection between imperialism and the intensification of national oppression. "In the newly opened-up countries," he writes, "the capital imported into them intensifies antagonisms and excites against the intruders the constantly growing resistance of the peoples who are awakening to national consciousness; this resistance can easily develop into dangerous measures against foreign capital. The old social relations become completely revolutionised, the age-long agrarian isolation of 'nations without history' is destroyed and they are drawn into the capitalist whirlpool. Capitalism itself gradually provides the subjugated with the means and resources for their emancipation and they set out to achieve the goal which once seemed highest to the European nations: the creation of a united national state as a means to economic and cultural freedom. This movement for national independence threatens European capital in its most valuable and most promising fields of exploitation, and European capital can maintain its domination only by continually increasing its military forces."

                                                                                            V.I. Lenin