I must say that it is hilarious to quote Zizek as a "Marxist". Zitzek is a bourgeois clown. There is no "Western Marxism", spart from a small groups like the "Marxistische Gruppe", today "Gegenstandpunkt" in Germany. The rest vanished into thin air after the 1990 triumph of imperialism. We will have to rebuild it again. But beside of this, Losurdo is of course right if he stresses the importance of national and technological development. The SU succeeded to fight Nazi Germany, but finally failed to compete with the combined West. China recognized this necessity and decided to become the world most advanced economic power to achieve its independence. THE REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTION NOW IS THIS: Is the theory of "Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism" right in the sense that (capitalist) China and Russia will become imperialist nations? What does the national struggle for independence mean for further development, if these countries will once have reduced or even annihilated the imperial power of the western nations? I think, the ESSENTIAL difference is, that in Russia and China the foreign and financial politics are kept free of influence of big money. The American model does not imply in this countries, whether this define "communist" like China or "conservative-national" as Russia. So what does "NATION" mean in Russia and China, if it's not up to the bourgeois oligarchs to define it? WE DONT KNOW, BECAUSE THE WORLD HAS NEVER BEEN IN A SITUATION LIKE THIS: highly developed nations to refute imperialism and colonialism. Call me an optimist, but I think this is the most successful way to liberate the world from the monster we are subjugated since generations. I even suppose it is the only one. We will never watch a socialist upheaval in the western nations again. It is over, not only with western hegemony, but also the western proletariat as an emancipative class.