In describing modern Communism, we should recapitulate the theories of Marx as developed by Lenin. These are: Leninist Theory of Imperialism. The Communists claim that the class war in present times has become international, for capitalism has also become international. As Marx said, capitalism develops by its inherent contradictions, which also become the causes of its ultimate destruction. The workers are unable to buy the goods and other articles which they have themselves manufactured, for their wages are so low.
This makes it necessary for the capitalists to seek new markets in other countries, both for the supply of raw materials for their industry and a market for their manufactured goods. It leads to a scramble among the capitalist countries for conquering new lands and countries, which become their colonies and dependencies. Thus the whole world is divided among a few capitalist countries. This turns capitalism into international capitalism, or imperialism which is the highest phase of capitalism. Its chief features are the growth of monopolies and trusts in order to exploit the industrial resources and the working classes at home and the subject peoples in the colonies, the growth of the finance, capital and international banking and the impoverishment of the peoples of the colonies and dependencies and, above all, the wars.
They are fought between the old and the new capitalist countries for the redistribution of colonies and world-markets between them. But the world wars are the harbingers of communist revolutions in various parts of the world because the working classes have become organised, their sufferings have reached at a climax and famine, inflation and other social evils have spread over large parts of the world.
The class war becomes international. In some countries, the workers, led by the communist parties, overthrow capitalism and establish a communist State with an avowed purpose of building socialism and communism. But as communism cannot be established suddenly after the communist revolution, a period of transition from capitalism to communism begins. This is the transitional stage of the socialist State, established after the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist State.