Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
In "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" (1916) Lenin's economic analyses indicated that capitalism would transform into a global financial system, by which industrialised countries exported financial capital to their colonies and so realise the exploitation of labour of the natives and the exploitation of the natural resources of their countries. That such superexploitation allows wealthy countries to maintain a domestic labour aristocracy with a slightly higher standard of living than the majority of workers, and so ensure peaceful labour–capital relations in the capitalist homeland. Therefore, a proletarian revolution of workers and peasants could not occur in capitalist countries whilst the imperialist global-finance system remained in place. The first proletarian revolution would have to occur in an under-developed country, such as Imperial Russia, which was the politically weakest country in the capitalist global-finance system in the early 20th century. In the "United States of Europe Slogan" (1915), Lenin wrote: