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Imperialism, the Highest Stage of

Capitalism
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), by
Imperialism, the Highest
Vladimir Lenin, describes the function of financial capital in generating
Stage of Capitalism
profits from imperialist colonialism as the final stage of capitalist
development to ensure greater profits. The essay is a synthesis of
Lenin's modifications and developments of economic theories that Karl
Marx formulated in Das Kapital (1867).[1]

Contents
Summary
Theoretical development
Intellectual influence
Publication history
See also
References
Author Vladimir Lenin
External links
Original title Империализм как
высшая стадия
капитализма
Summary
Country Russian Republic
In his Prefaces, Lenin states that the First World War (1914–1918) was
Language Russian
"an annexationist, predatory, plunderous war"[2] among empires, whose
Genre Social criticism
historical and economic background must be studied "to understand
and appraise modern war and modern politics".[3] Published 1917 (written 1916)

In order for capitalism to generate greater profits than the home market can yield, the merging of banks and
industrial cartels produces finance capitalism—the exportation and investment of capital to countries with
underdeveloped economies. In turn, such financial behaviour leads to the division of the world among monopolist
business companies and the great powers. Moreover, in the course of colonizing undeveloped countries, business
and government eventually will engage in geopolitical conflict over the economic exploitation of large portions of
the geographic world and its populaces. Therefore, imperialism is the highest (advanced) stage of capitalism,
requiring monopolies (of labour and natural-resource exploitation) and the exportation of finance capital (rather
than goods) to sustain colonialism, which is an integral function of said economic model.[4][5] Furthermore, in the
capitalist homeland, the super-profits yielded by the colonial exploitation of a people and their economy permit
businessmen to bribe native politicians, labour leaders and the labour aristocracy (upper stratum of the working
class) to politically thwart worker revolt (labour strike).

Theoretical development
Lenin's socio–political analysis of empire as the ultimate stage of capitalism derived from Imperialism: A Study

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(1902) by John A. Hobson, an English economist, and Finance Capital (Das Finanzcapital, 1910) by Rudolf
Hilferding, an Austrian Marxist, whose synthesis Lenin applied to the new geopolitical circumstances of the First
World War, wherein capitalist imperial competition had provoked global war among the German Empire, the
British Empire, the French Empire, the Tsarist Russian Empire, and their respective allies.

Three years earlier, in 1914, rival Marxist Karl Kautsky proposed a theory of capitalist coalition, wherein the
imperial powers would unite and subsume their nationalist and economic antagonisms to a system of ultra-
imperialism, whereby they would jointly effect the colonialist exploitation of the underdeveloped world. Lenin
countered Kautsky by proposing that the balance of power among the imperial capitalist states continually
changed, thereby disallowing the political unity of ultra-imperialism, and that such instability motivated
competition and conflict, rather than co-operation:

Half a century ago, Germany was a miserable, insignificant country, if her capitalist strength is
compared with that of the Britain of that time; Japan compared with Russia in the same way. Is it
"conceivable that in ten or twenty years' time the relative strength will have remained unchanged?" It
is out of the question.[6][7]

The post-War edition of Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1920) identified the territorially punitive
Russo–German Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) and the Allied–German Treaty of Versailles (1919) as proofs that
empire and hegemony—not nationalism—were the economic motivations for the First World War.[8] In the preface
to the French and German editions of the essay, Lenin proposed that revolt against the capitalist global system
would be effected with the "thousand million people" of the colonies and semi-colonies (the system's weak points),
rather than with the urban workers of the industrialised societies of Western Europe.[9] He proposed that
revolution would extend to the advanced (industrial) capitalist countries from the underdeveloped countries, such
as Tsarist Russia, where he and the Bolsheviks had successfully seized political command of the October Revolution
of 1917.[10] In political praxis, Lenin expected to realise the theory of Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
via the Third International (1919–1943), which he intellectually and politically dominated in the July and August
conferences of 1920.[11]

Intellectual influence
The core–periphery model of global capitalist exploitation, developed by
Lenin in the early 20th century, exerted much intellectual influence upon
world-systems theory. World-systems theory was developed by the social
scientist Immanuel Wallerstein and emphasises world systems of
international labour, that divide the world into core countries,
semi-periphery countries, and periphery countries. The core–periphery
model also influenced dependency theory, whose proponents Raúl
Prebisch, Andre Gunder Frank and Fernando Henrique Cardoso propose
that natural resources flow from a periphery of poor and underdeveloped
countries to a core of wealthy and developed countries, enriching the latter
at the expense of the former, because of how the poor countries are
integrated to the global economy.[12]

Publication history Immanuel Wallerstein, an

exponent of the World-systems
In 1916, Lenin wrote Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, in theory. (ca. 2008)
Zürich, during the January–June period. The essay was first published by

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Zhizn i Znaniye (Life and Knowledge) Publishers, Petrograd, in mid 1917. After the First World War, he added a
new Preface (6 July 1920) for the French and German editions, which was first published in the Communist
International No. 18 (1921).[13]

Editions

Владимир Ленин (1917), Империализм, как Высшая Стадия Капитализма, Петроград: Жизнь и Знание.
Vladimir Lenin (1948), Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Vladimir Lenin (2000), Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, with Introduction by Prabhat Patnaik, New
Delhi: LeftWord Books
Vladimir Lenin (2010), Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Penguin Classics.

See also
Vladimir Lenin bibliography
Banana republic
Globalization
Singer–Prebisch thesis
The Accumulation of Capital: A Contribution to an Economic Explanation of Imperialism (1913), by Rosa
Luxemburg

References
1. John Baylis and Steve Smith (2005) The Globalization of World Politics OUP: p. 231
2. “Imperialism and Capitalism” in the Communist International, No. 18, October 1921. p. 3.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1916lenin-imperialism.html#bm3.
3. “Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism Preface April 26, 1917. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall
/mod/1916lenin-imperialism.html.
4. Paul Bowles (2007) Capitalism, Pearson: London. pp. 91–93
5. Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism III. Finance Capital and the Financial Oligarchy
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch03.htm)
6. Alex Callinicos (2009) Imperialism and Global Political Economy. Cambridge: Polity Press. p. 65.
7. Lenin Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-
hsc/).
8. Christopher Read (2005) Lenin. London: Routledge. pp. 116–126
9. Vladimir Lenin (2000) Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism pp. 37–38
10. Christopher Read (2005) Lenin. London: Routledge. pp. 116–126
11. Prabhat Patnaik (2000) "Introduction" to Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, by Lenin. New Dehli,
Leftword Books. pp. 10–11
12. John Baylis and Steve Smith (2005) The Globalization of World Politics. OUP: pp. 231–235
13. Vladimir Lenin (2000) Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, with Introduction by Prabhat Patnaik, New
Delhi: LeftWord Books

External links
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/) by
Vladimir Lenin at the Marxists Internet Archive

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