Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism introduces a
classic pamphlet that explains how capitalism was transformed by
spreading international conflicts. LENIN WROTE Imperialism: The
Highest Stage of Capitalism in 1916 in the middle of the carnage
of the First World War. The pamphlet was an intervention in the
sharp political debate that had torn apart the international
socialist movement at the start of the war, with nearly every
socialist party in Europe backing its own government in the
conflict. When war was declared in 1914, socialists in the
German parliament voted unanimously to fund it, arguing that
they had to defend civilization against the despotism of the
Russian Tsar. Meanwhile, French socialists said they had to
defend revolutionary France against Prussian militarism, and so
on, across the board. Lenin's Bolshevik Party in Russia was one
of the few socialist organizations that maintained principled
opposition to its own government. Lenin argued that the war was
an imperialist conflict in whi