Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism

Shortly before the Soviet revolution of 1917, Lenin wrote Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Distilling Karl Marx's theories, and giving detailed economic figures, he shows how capital becomes more concentrated and more powerful. Capitalism leads unavoidably to monopolies and imperialism, where capitalists in wealthy countries divide the world up among themselves in order to produce "superprofits" via colonialism, which continues to the modern day via financial colonialism. As Lenin says, without this fundamental knowledge, "it will be impossible to understand and appraise modern war and modern politics."