Writing in 1916, Lenin described imperialism as a phenomenon of monopoly capitalism, with its territorial division of the world between financial and industrial cartels and competing imperial blocs. Lenin indicted monopoly and violence as the reality lurking behind the myth of peaceful, mutually beneficial exchange. As capitalism developed, he argued, the concentration of production and capital led to the transformation of free competition into monopoly. Far from creating peaceful international relations of mutual understanding and benefit, the Bolshevik theoretician contended, war and Great Power rivalry were endemic to capitalism.

Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, loc. 254