ROLE OF MONOPOLY AND FINANCE CAPITAL IN THE ERA OF IMPERIALISM

In contemporary world struggle, the bourgeoisie still postures as the champion of the free trade. But it is not the free trade of the old, competitive stage of capitalism. It is the free trade of GAINT IMPERIALIST MONOPOLIES.”[1] --SAM MARCYIMPERIALISM HAS been continuing as being the catch-word of the present century. Several adjectives are being added to the term such as American Imperialism, Cultural Imperialism, Globalized Imperialism, etc. that manifest powerful penetration of imperialism into every nook and corner of the present-day life.Contemporary world is ruled by the ‘Uni-polar’ American Imperialism that exploits the world population at large by snatching lion’s share of “booty” surplus value squeezed by the world imperialist camp through imposing its hegemony over the world. The world imperialist powers are trying to make world as unhindered market for the penetration of their finance-capital. “The US imperialism,” says Enver Hoxha, the first president of Socialist Albania, “and other capitalist states have fought and are fighting to maintain their hegemony in the world, to defend the capitalist and neo-colonialist system, to emerge from great crisis which has them in its grip, with the fewest possible losses…….the US imperialism, which dominates its partners, politically, economically and militarily, has the main role in the struggle to achieve these aims.”[2] In this juncture of Globalization, it is highly necessary to study the role of monopoly and finance capital that differentiates the imperialist stage of capitalism from pre-imperialist capitalism.The term ‘imperialism’ has its origin in the Latin ‘imperilcm’ which is generally meant an expression employed for the aspiration to form a single, powerful empire encompassing the entire world; an aspiration which one state or another may realize by conquest, or by colonization, or by a “peaceful” political unification of existing sovereign entities, or by the simultaneous application of all these methods. In this sense, we speak of the Imperium Romanum, of the empire Julius Caesar founded in 45 BC, when he extended his personal power to all Roman countries and entrenched this power by assuming the title Imperator or of the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great or of Charlemagne’s empire, etc.[3] But when we speak of modern imperialism we should keep the imperialism that raised on the soil of a highly developed capitalism,[4] in our mind. According to Lenin, who gave a comprehensive picture of imperialism in his classical work, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, “Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of world among the international trusts has begun; in which the division of all territories of the glob among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.”[5]This paper is trying to analyze the evolution and role of monopoly and finance capital as the mechanism of the Age of Empire[6] or Imperialism in the last decades of 19th century and early decades of 20th century since this period developed a new kind of imperialism.[7] The essence of the present study basically revolves around four central and interrelated themes. These themes are; Pre-Imperialist capitalism, a retrospect; concentration of production and emergence of monopolies; role of banks and appearance of finance capital and financial oligarchies; and export of capital as the logic of new imperialism. Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism is much used for making structure of this paper. In addition to this several other published works including J.A.Hobson’s Imperialism, a study, Rudolf Hilferding’s Finance Capital, Michel Beaud’s A History of Capitalism, 1500-2000, etc as well as several journals are also used. Here I express my sincere gratitude toward Dr. S.Sivadasan, the Head of the Department of history in SREE SANKARACHARYA UNIVRSITY OF SANSKRIT, KALADI, KERALA for giving valuable helps and suggestions for preparing this paper.
I. PRE-IMPERIALIST CAPITALISM – A Retrospect“The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.”[8]-- KARL MARX and FREDERICK ENGELSTHE CAPITALIST mode of production had emerged from the ruins of the feudalism since 1500 a key date which opens a century that can be considered as a “great turning point in the world history.”[9] The entire period of capitalism since its birth can broadly be classified into Pre-imperialist era and Imperialist era. Pre-imperialist capitalism is the capitalism that existed up to the emergence of monopoly and finance capital.The life of pre-imperialist capitalism started from mercantilism. Then it proceeded from mercantilist capitalism to manufacturing capitalism to industrial capitalism. Capitalist production grew out of individual production of the feudal times. The typical form of feudal production was production for local consumption; food, clothing and other articles were produced by the serfs for themselves and for their feudal lords.[10] But this feudal mode of production failed to fulfill the developing needs of the society. Thus the production for profit[11] i.e. production for sale which is the essential mark of capitalism[12] had been emerged since the gradual breaking up of the old feudal production, the production for consumption. Production for profit necessitated two things; someone with enough resources to buy means of production (looms, spinning-machines and so on) and, secondly, people who had no means of production themselves, no resources by which they could live. In other words, there had to be ‘capitalists’ or bourgeoisie, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor and workers or proletariat, the class who, “having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live.”[13]The bourgeoisie appropriates surplus value produced by the wage labor in the form of profit. The two principal forms of accumulation that existed in 16th century were a) accumulation by state (royal manufacturers, king’s highway, ports, etc.) and b) bourgeois accumulation (private fortunes, money, precious metals, real estates etc.).[14] In this century, the conditions for the future development of capitalism came into being; banking and merchant bourgeoisies having at their disposal both immense fortunes and banking and financial networks.[15] It is in this sense only that one can date the capitalist era as beginning in the 16th century. So the mercantile capitalism can be considered as the embryo of the development that later on could be called capitalism.[16]With the increase of trade, the merchants began to need more surpluses that produced by serfs and not required by their lords; they therefore began to develop organized production for the market, using the whole time labor of serfs who had been freed or had succeeded in escaping form their lords. So in a slow development, lasting hundreds of years, there grew up the production for market carried on by independent artisans and employers of the wage-labor. The independent artisans also gradually developed employers of labor with ‘journeymen’ working for them for wages.[17] Here we have seen a transition from mercantile capitalism to the emergence of manufacturing system.In the 19th century the world witnessed several bourgeois revolutions against the feudal yoke. The revolution firstly started in the first colonization,[18] i.e., America and later France in 1789 and other countries. With the American and French revolutions, and with the development of “Industrial Revolution” in the later phase of the eighteenth century, a new period opened up, characterized by the irresistible rise of capitalism,[19] i.e. Industrial Capitalism.This industrial capitalism was set up on the basis of competition or free trade. “The cry for freedom by bourgeoisie”, explains Engels, “meant nothing more than freedom of trade.”[20] So this period also known as laissez-faire and laissez-aller[21] period of capitalism.[22] But this laissez-fair capitalism could not be longer as it gave rise to the concentration of capital and emergence of monopolies what Marx foresaw, that led to another stage of capitalism, Imperialism.II. CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTION AND EMERGENCE OF MONOPOLIES“Thesis: Feudal monopoly, before competition.Anti-thesis: Competition [Bourgeois competition].Synthesis: Modern monopoly, which is the negation of feudal monopoly, is so far as it implies the system of completion, and negation of competition is so far as it is monopoly.”“Thus modern monopoly, bourgeois monopoly is synthetic monopoly, the negation of the negation, the unity of opposites. It is monopoly in the pure, normal, rational state.”[23]-- KARL MARXFREE TRADE as it existed before the middle of the 19th century had disappeared. Its replacement by giant, marauding monopolies represents a new era of capitalism – the era of Imperialism. Karl Marx foresaw this and the concentration of capital and production in the few capitalists called monopolists. This can be seen in his above quoted passage. In addition to this, he gives clear account of concentration of capital that led to monopoly in his famous work, Capital. According to him, the first historical transformation in the development of capitalism consists in the separation of the workers from the means of production and creation of a class of free wage laborers.[24] But once this process has been completed and “the capitalist mode of production stands on its own two feet, the further socialization of labor…… and therefore communal means of production takes on a new form. What is now to be expropriated is not the self-employed worker, but this capitalist who exploits a large number of workers. This expropriation is accomplished through the action of immanent laws of capitalist production itself, through the centralization of capital…. Hand in hand with this centralization or expropriation of many capitalists by the few, other developments take place.”[25] He again explains that “monopoly produces competition, competition produces monopoly. Monopolists are made from competition; competitors become monopolists.”[26] Thus he proved that the free competition gave rise to the concentration of production which turns, at a certain stage of development, leads to monopolies. So, monopoly is one of the chief characteristic features of Imperialism.According to Lenin, who developed Marxism in the era of Imperialism,[27] the enormous growth of industry and remarkably rapid concentration of production in ever-large enterprises are one of the most characteristic features of capitalism.[28]As an initial stage of imperialism the production concentrated in few of the big industries. For example, in Germany out of every 1,000 industrial enterprises, large enterprises that employing more than 50 workers numbered 3 in 1882, 6 in 1895 and 9 in 1907 and out of 100 workers employed these groups of enterprises employed 22, 30, and 37 respectively.[29] The following diagram (Fig. 1) also shows the concentration of production in Germany during this period.[30]Fig 1: Concentration of production in GermanyIf we examine the statistical data of the concentration of production in America from 1904 to 1909, we can get the same result not only on the basis of workers employed but also on the basis of output.

It can be picturized as follows
Fig 2: Concentration of production in America
From the table and diagram (Fig. 2), it is easily understood that in America the concentration of production in few of companies i.e., in 0.9% companies in 1904 and 1.1% of companies in 1909 were concentrated. Almost half of the total production was concentrated in one hundredth part of these enterprises.[31]When we speak of the concentration of production, we cannot avoid the “Combination”, a very important feature of capitalism.[32] Combination means the grouping in a single enterprise of different branches of industry. It either represented the consecutive stages in the processing of raw materials (for example, the smelting of iron ore into pig-iron; the conversion of pig iron into steel, and then perhaps, the manufacturing of steel goods) or auxiliary to one another (for example, the utilization of scrap, or of by-products, the manufacturing of packing materials etc.)According to Hilferding, an Austrian Marxist and author of Finance Capital which is used by Lenin for designing his idea on imperialism, “combination levels out the fluctuations of trade and therefore assures to the combined enterprises a more stable rate of profit. Secondly, combination has the effect of eliminating trade. Thirdly, it has the effect of rendering possible technical improvement and, consequently, the acquisition of super-profits over and above those obtained by the ‘pure’ (non-combined) enterprises.”[33] For example, in Germany in 1904, the big coal companies, producing millions of tons yearly, strongly combined or organized in their coal syndicate and big steel plants closely allied to the coal mines, having their own steel syndicate. These giant enterprises produced 400,000 tons of steel per annum, with a tremendous output of ore and coal and finished steel goods.[34]Concentration went on further and further. Individual enterprises became larger and larger. It is extremely important to note that by swallowing small industries, concentration leads to monopoly. According to Lenin, the Monopoly is exactly creating large-scale industry and eliminating small industry, replacing large-scale industry by still larger-scale industry, finally leading to such a concentration of production and capital, that monopoly has been and is the result.[35]The principal stages in the development of monopolies are as follows:i) 1860-70, the highest stage, the apex of development of free competition; monopoly is in the barely discernible, embryonic stage.ii) After the crisis of 1873, a lengthy period of development of cartels; but they are still exception. They are still a transitory phenomenon.iii) The boom at the end of 19th century and crisis of 1900-03.Cartels became one of the foundations of the whole economic life. Capitalism has been transformed into imperialism.[36] So the production was concentrated into the monopolies whose forms were “cartels, syndicates and trusts.”[37]The number of cartels in Germany was estimated at about 250 in 1896 and at 385 in 1905, with about 12000 firms participating. The half of the steam and electric power totally used in the country were consumed by these giant cartels. The then American statistics can be seen in the following diagram (Fig. 3).[38]Fig 3: Emergence of Monopolies in Germany
The big monopolies used following methods to create big monopoly “organization”:i) Stopping supplies of raw materials.ii) Stopping the supply of labor by means of alliances. (agreements imposed upon laborers)iii) Stopping deliveries.iv) Closing trade outlets.v) Agreements with the buyers, by which the latter undertake to trade only with the cartels.vi) Systematic price cutting.vii) Stopping credits andviii) Boycott.Here we see the monopolists throttling those who do not submit to them, to their yoke, to their dictation.[39] Monopoly, thus, is the last word in the latest phase of capitalist developments.[40] III. ROLE OF BANKS AND APPEARANCE OF FINANCE CAPITAL AND FINANCIAL OLIGARCHIESConcentration of Banks and Bank Capital:THE PRINCIPAL and primary function of bank is to serve as middle man in making payments that means receiving deposits and lending loans. By doing this they transform inactive money capital into active i.e. into capital yielding profit. They collect all kinds of money revenues and place them at the disposal of the capitalist class.From this primary level banks grew to the powerful monopolies having at their command almost the whole of money capital of all the capitalists and small business men. This transformation of numerous modest middle men into a handful of monopolies is one of the fundamental processes in the growth of capitalism into capitalist imperialism.[41] “Affiliated banks” are the most important distinguishing features of modern capitalist concentration. Following figures (Fig. 4) clearly shows the concentration of bank capital in Germany.Fig 4: Concentration of Bank Capital in Germany
The concentration of banks was going on and the final word of this concentration is monopoly. In this period the banks undertook the duties of Stock Exchanges. Oscar Stillich said that “every bank is Stock Exchange”.Simultaneously the relation between banks and industry had been appearing. It is precisely in this sphere the new role of bank was come into being. This connection between banks and industrial enterprises had a new content, new forms and new organs. Thus the 20th century marks the turning-point from the old capitalism to the new, form domination of capital to the domination of finance capital.Finance Capital and Financial Oligarchies:Early phase of the history of banks reveals that they had little or no direct interests in the industrial concerns even though they lend money to them and took share of industrial profits. But enormous growth of industry took the attention of bankers’ interest. They started to undertake the share of industrial capital at the same time the richer industrialists also undertook the shares of banks. Thus a tie of bank with industry could be appeared. This merging of industrial capital with bank capital gave birth to a new phenomenon called ‘Finance Capital’. Thus the very richest capitalists, whether they started as bankers or industrialists, became ‘banker-industrialists’.[42]“An ever greater share of industrial capital”, explains Hilferding, “ceases to belong to the industrialists who employ it. They are granted control over this capital only through the good graces of the bank, which, in relation to them, represents the owner. On the other hand, the bank must invest an ever greater share of its capital assets in industry. Thus the bank becomes to an even greater extent, an industrial capitalist. I call the bank capital, that is, capital in the form of money, which is in this manner actually transformed into the industrial capital - finance capital”. He again defined the finance capital as greater share of capital invested in industry i.e. capital controlled by the banks and operated by the industrialists.[43]Finance capital developed along with the development of the Stock companies and reaches its apex in the monopolization of industry. The industrial returns assured a more secure and more constant character. Thus possibilities for investment of banking capital in industry are increasingly expanded. But the banks retained control over bank capital.[44]“The concentration of production”, says Lenin, “the monopoly arising there from; the merging or coalescence of banking with industry – such is the history of the rise of finance-capital and what gives the term ‘finance-capital’ its content.”[45]The best illustration of the merging of banks with industries is the increasing number of directorships in industries held by the directors of the bank. In 1870 the directors of the banks which later became the ‘Big Five’ and Bank of England held 157 other directorships; in 1913 they held 329; in 1939 they held 1150.[46]One way or another, nearly the whole of the rest of the world is more or less the debtor to and tributary of the international banker countries – Great Britain, the United States, France and Germany, the four “pillars” of world finance capital.[47]IV EXPORT OF CAPITALIT IS highly necessary to examine the export of capital that plays in creating the international network of dependence on and connection of finance capital. The characteristic feature of the old capitalism was the export of goods. Typical characteristic feature of the latest stage of capitalism is the export of capital.“As export increased”, says Michel Beaud, “from the capitalist countries, international competition became still more severe; capital was exported and overseas holdings and affiliates were created.”[48] On the threshold of the 20th century, there was the formation of new type of monopoly: firstly, monopolist associations of capitalists in all capitalistically developed countries; secondly, the monopolist position of a few very rich countries, in which the accumulation of capital has reached gigantic proportions. An enormous surplus of capital has arisen in the advanced countries.[49] As the basic nature of capitalism is the profit harvest, they use these capitals for the purpose of increasing profit by exporting capital abroad. The capital has been exported mainly to the backward countries since in these backward countries profits were usually high, for capital was scarce, the price of land was relatively low, wages were low, and raw materials were cheap.[50]Sidney Pollard in his essay, ‘Capital exports, 1870-1914: Harmful or Beneficial?’ gives the following table to show the export of capital of the world.[51]Table 2
An another study is also given below.[52]Table 3
This tabulation clearly says that the principal spheres of investment of British capital are in the British colonies, which are very large in America. France’s situation is totally different. French exports of capital are invested mainly in Europe, primarily in Russia. This is mainly loan capital, government loans and not capital invested in industrial undertakings. German capital was mainly invested in both Europe and Australia.How the export of capital worked in those recipient countries is that it influences and accelerates the development of capitalism in the countries. The export of capital is also a means of encouraging the export of commodities.[53] In the export of capital the close connection between powerful banks and governments cannot be ignored.V RESULTS OF THE OPERATION OF FINANCE CAPITAL IN 20TH CENTURYThe monopoly and finance capital that appeared in the last part of the 19th century and first of the 20th century had several results – both positive and negative. The most important direct results are: the outbreak of the 1st and 2nd World Wars, the Socialistic Revolutions throughout the East that led to the emergence of a new World Socialist Camp which alarmed the Imperialist camp, Armament race and LPG (Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization).By the emergence of finance capital, the world imperialist powers divided the whole of the earth into convenient ‘spheres of influences’ for the investment of their finance capital thus the world was divided among these ‘powerful capital exporting countries’. The inherent law of capitalism, its asymmetrical development, necessitated the re-division of the already divided world market. But the finance capital groups in the wealthiest states could no longer expand the territories controlled by them except at each others expense. So, large-scale wars to re-divide the world in favor of the victorious states emerged as a common phenomenon. Large-scale wars between great powers have been the outcome of these demands for re-division of the world that had already been divided. That is why Lenin scientifically prophesied the 1st World War and called it as ‘imperialist war’. According to him, “the present war is imperialist in character. This war is the outcome of conditions in an epoch in which capitalism has reached in the highest stage in its development, in which the greatest significance attaches, not only to the export of commodities, but also to the export of capital.”[54]Another important result as above mentioned is the Socialistic Revolutions of 20th century inaugurated by the Great October Socialist Revolution of Russia in 1917. In the imperialist stage of capitalism, the inner contradictions of the imperialist countries were aggravated since the imperialist wars destroy the common life. So the class antagonism and struggle in this period became more and more acute. This ultimately led to the revolutions as 20th century witnessed. By the effort of Lenin and Stalin a third Communist International had been constituted that created the World Socialist Camp and led it. This was severe blow to the world imperialist camp. This resulted within the imperialist camp as death-knell alarm. So the world was divided into two and stood face to face. The then and ever seen socialist camp started to compete with and combat the world imperialist system which has been built upon the basis of exploitation. These struggle and competition are known as so-called “Cold War”. Unfortunately the cold war ended up with the collapse of the socialist camp.In post war period, the world saw that the imperialist camp lost their old modus operandi i.e., colonies, through de-colonization process based on the two principles – nationalism and right to self-determination. So the imperialism had to operate for several decades without direct colonization. Thus they re-articulated a new modus operandi[55], i.e. neo-colonialism or indirect colonialism through economic invasions and compulsions. Thus they compulsorily impose LPG (Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization). So the LPG is the direct result of the operations of the finance capital for making its unhindered penetrations possible.CONCLUSIONCONCENTRATION OF capital, centralization of capital, internationalization of capital – these three features are making the transition of capitalism form its competitive stage to its monopoly stage.[56] These are also the three distinct characteristics of present-day capitalism. Nowadays the world imperialism gave up its old modus operandi, i.e. colonization and re-articulated a new, i.e. indirect neo-colonialism in the form of LPG.The old cartels, syndicates and trusts have been replaced by new MNCs and TNCs in the post-war period. Nowadays the world has been divided among these gigantic imperialistic concerns. They are penetrating into the backward third world countries through LPG. The old multi-polar imperialism gave way to the US uni-polar imperialism. The core imperialist countries consist of the United States of America at the apex and its sub-partners, bent to exploiting the peripheral countries. It facilitates the entry of finance capital into every nook and corner of the world.The developments since the end of the Second World War reveal that the features of capitalism in its imperialist stage have only become more sharpened, but in their essence have remained unaltered; only their forms have changed. As Lenin envisaged, present-day capitalism has become far more internationalized.[57]Day-by-day the contradictions between rulers of the imperialist forces and working people, between imperialist powers and under developed countries and contradiction within the imperialist powers are sharpening. These were the contradictions underlined by Lenin that cannot be solved within the framework of capitalism. It is obvious that Lenin’s conclusion that historically imperialism stands at the eve of proletarian revolution is also valid in the present society.BIBLIOGRAPHYBooks publishedE.J.HOBASBAWM, The Age of Empire, 1875-1914, Rupa & co., Culcatta, 1992.EMILE BURNS, What is Marxism?, Peoples Publishing House, Dellhi, 1983.ENVER HOXHA, Imperialism and Revolution, Albania Edn. 1978.F.POLYANSKY, An Economic History – Age of Imperialism (1870-1917), Progress Pub. Moscow, 1985.Globalization of Capital, An Outline of Recent Changes in the Modus Operandi of Imperialism, Lal Parcham – Lok Dasta Publication, 1997.K.MARX and F.ENGELS, Capital, Vol. I, Progress Pub., Moscow, 1977., Manifesto of the Communist Party, Progress pub. Moscow, 1977.MICHEL BEAUD, A History of Capitalism, 1500-2000, Aakar books, Delhi,2004.RAJEN HARSHÉ, Twentieth Century Imperialism – shifting contours and changing Conceptions, Sage pub., New Delhi, 1997.STALIN, The Foundations of Leninism, Massline pub. 2000.V.I.LENIN, Against Imperialist War, Progress Pub. Moscow, 1978., Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Selected works, Vol. I, Progress Pub. Moscow, 1976.JournalsANIKET ALAM, “National Interest’ Not the Issue in Nuclear Deal”, Economic and Political Weekly, September 27, 2008.JOHN.A.HOBSON, “Socialistic Imperialism”, International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 12. No, 1, Oct. 1901.JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER, “Monopoly-Finance Capital”, Monthly Review, Vol. 58, No. 7.JOHN CUNNINGHAM WOOD, “J.A.Hobson and British Imperialism”, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 42, No. 4, Oct. 1983.KITTY MENON, “Export of Capital in the Contemporary Period”, Social Scientist, Vol.10. No. 3, Mar. 1982.SIDNEY POLLARD, “Capital Export, 1870-1914: Harmful or Beneficial?”, The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 38, No. 4, Nov. 1998.Webliography“Colonialism and Imperialism: classic Texts”, http://users.ntua.gr/jmilios/COLONIALISM-fin%20.docDAVID.N.BAALAM and MICHAEL VESETH, “Commanding Height – Lenin’s Critique of Global Capitalism”, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/ess_leninscritique.htmlGREGORY ZENOVIEV, “What is Imperialism?”, http://www.marxists.org/archive/zinoviev/works/x01/x01.htmJOHN HOBSON, “Imperialism”, 1902, http://www.marxists.org/archive/hobson/1902/imperialism/index.htmKEVIN.A.CARSON, “Austrian and Marxist Theories of Monopoly-Capital”, http://www.mutualist.org/id10.html“Market, Monopoly and War”, http//www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/overview/war.pdfNICK BEAMS, “Marxism and Political Economy of Paul Sweezy”, The World Socialist Website, Apr. 2004. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/ps6-a13.shtml .SAM MARCY, “Free trade, Monopoly and NAFTA”, workers World, Aug. 26, 1993. http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/sambol/bolwar/bolwar03.htm#fn13Notes and References[1] SAM MARCY, “Free Trade, Monopoly and NFTA”, Workers World, August 26, 1993. http://www.workers.org/marcy/1993/sm930826.html.[2] ENVER HOXHA, Imperialism and the Revolution, Foreign Language pub., 1978, p.9.[3]GREGORY ZINOVIEV, “What is Imperialism?”, http://www.marxists.org/archive/zinoviev/works/x01/x01.htm.[4] Ibidem.[5] LENIN, “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, Selected Works, Vol. I, Progress Pub., Moscow, 1976, p. 700.[6] E.J.HOBSBAWM, The Age of Empire, Rupa & co., Culcuta, 1992, pp. 11-12.[7] Ibid., p. 56.[8] K.MARX and F.ENGELS, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Progress Pub., Moscow, 1977, p. 41.[9] MICHEL BEAUD, A History of Capitalism, 1500-2000, Aakar Books, Delhi, 2004, p. 8.