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p The United States of America is a federal republic consisting of 50 states and the Federal District of Columbia. It has an area of 9,400,000 sq. km. and a population of over 206 million. The Caroline, Marianas and Marshall islands are under temporary US trusteeship. The United States has turned the Panama Canal Zone into an important military base.

p The USA is also a colonial power which among other territories controls Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Samoa, Guam and a number of small islands in Oceania.

The USA is the economic and military citadel of modern capitalism, and its monopoly capital is the world’s biggest exploiter. At the same time the US is the political and ideological centre of modern imperialism. Behind a facade of freedom and democracy, the USA is fulfilling the role of a world gendarme, the strangler of democratic freedoms at home and abroad.

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p The USA is a realm of giant monopolies, a country which, in the words of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States Gus Hall, is on the crest of an unprecedented, mad avalanche of monopoly mergers. As large corporations swallow the smaller ones so-called conglomerates are formed. These conglomerates are giant monopoly associations determined to gain control over many branches of production and regions of the world.

p The concentration of economic might in the hands of the monopolies and their coalescence with the state machinery have augmented the role of state-monopoly capitalism which is dominating all spheres of life in the country and particularly industry. Not more than 250 of the biggest US corporations control 70 per cent of the country’s total industrial output.

p Monopolies in the United States are much more powerful than those in other capitalist countries. Social contrasts in the United States are also much deeper than elsewhere in the capitalist world.

p A handful of multi-millionaires, millionaires and other capitalists comprising a mere two per cent of the US population owns 50 per cent of the country’s wealth. The bourgeoisie, which lolls in luxury, calls the USA a land of plenty. But according to official figures 22 million Americans live in extreme poverty in this, the richest country of the capitalist world. Actually, however, the US economists estimate that 40 per cent of the population are indigent.

p Capitalist exploitation is mounting in the country. Oppressing 60 million workers, US capitalism annually derives $ 100,000 million in profits from their exploitation.

p The population of the United States, which has surpassed 205 million, is continuing to grow, and includes among other races over 25 million Afro-Americans, people of Negro origin, more than five million Mexicans, about a million Puerto Ricans and over 500,000 Indians.

p Indians, the indigenous inhabitants of America, are living in extreme poverty in reservations where they are deprived of rights and all prospects for the future.

p One of the lowest steps of the US social pyramid is occupied by Puerto Ricans and Americans of Mexican extraction, mostly itinerant agricultural workers.

p Fifty per cent of the American Negroes, who make up 101 a tenth of the population, live in slums. There are twice as many unemployed Negroes as there are whites. A Negro gets a much smaller wage than a white person. Racial discrimination against Negroes exists in all spheres of life.

p The United States has vast natural resources. The proven resources of coal surpass 125,000 million tons. Oil resources in the south and west of the country are estimated at 5,000 million tons. In the Great Lakes area, the Appalachi Mountains and other regions there are iron ore deposits estimated at 5,000 million tons. The mountainous states have large deposits of copper and complex ores, uranium and other nuclear raw materials, tungsten, molybdenum and nickel. At the same time the USA has to import chromium, manganese, cobalt and other minerals. US monopolies control the extraction of oil in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, uranium ores in Canada and the Congo (Kinshasa), and other sources of strategic raw materials in foreign countries. There are vast tracts of fertile land in the USA.

p The US capitalism turned the devastating wars which drained the economies of the European countries into a source of profit and a means of intensifying their domination in the world. While the economy of the European belligerents declined in the Second World War, the US industries which supplied arms and ammunition to the overseas theatres of military operations, doubled their production. The profits of the US monopolies increased fourfold during the Second World War.

p William Foster, a pronounced figure of the American and world working-class movement, wrote in his Outline Political History of the Americas that the enrichment of the US capitalists and the impoverishment of the majority of other countries as a result of wars has been the most important factor determining the growth of America’s economic, financial and military strength.

p Foreign scientists, whose influx to the United States sharply increased in the post-war period (over 5,000 a year), are augmenting the country’s scientific and technological potential.

p The present-day economy of the United States has an industrial structure whose principal link is a highly developed multibranch manufacturing and building industry, 102 yielding over 65 per cent of the national income. The service industry is coming to play an increasing role in the economy.

p Manufacturing branches, whose rates of development are higher than those of the extractive industry, are predominant in the US industrial production. Heavy industry accounts for 60 per cent of the output of the manufacturing branches. Armaments production accounts for 25-35 per cent of the output of key industries. One out of every ten workers in the manufacturing industry produces armaments, in the electronic industry one out of three workers, and in the aircraft industry every other. Atomic power engineering is advancing.

p The engineering industry, where over a third of the total number of industrial workers are employed, manufactures about a half of the metal-working equipment produced in the capitalist world. The electronic and electrical engineering industries have reached a high level of development in the post-war period. The production of equipment for atomic power stations is increasing.

p The automobile industry, which produces up to 50 per cent of the total number of cars manufactured in the capitalist world, occupies a particularly important place alongside the production of railway equipment among the various branches of the US transport machine-building industry. Shipbuilding, especially the construction of warships, is also an advanced branch of production.

p The US aircraft industry’s capacities are much greater than the aggregate capacity of the British and West German aircraft factories. Nevertheless, more people are engaged in the production of missiles and space equipment.

p Having moved into first place in the capitalist world prior to the Second World War, the US chemical industry has made further progress in the post-war period.

p Metallurgy is one of the long-established branches of the US industry. Local resources of iron ore meet only 60 per cent of the requirements of the iron and steel factories, which import almost all the manganese, chromium and other alloy elements essential in making high-grade steels.

p Oil and natural gas make up 70 per cent of the US fuel balance. Thermal power stations account for more than 80 per cent of the total amount of electricity produced, 103 with hydroelectric power stations yielding a relatively small share.

p Industrial production, which is very unevenly distributed throughout the country, is concentrated mainly along the Atlantic coast and in the Great Lakes area. A 1,500- kilometre-long industrial and urbanised strip extends along the Atlantic seaboard from Boston to Birmingham and includes such important industrial cities as New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. In the Great Lakes area situated east of New York the chief industrial centres are Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo. The industrial importance of the states of Texas and Oklahoma (oil), Los Angeles (aircraft manufacturing) and San Francisco (shipbuilding) has increased considerably in recent years.

p The share of agriculture in the creation of the national income is a tenth of that of industry and building. The greater part of agricultural production is concentrated at highly mechanised capitalist farms. Less than 5 per cent of the biggest farms own 50 per cent of the cultivated area and account for the bulk of the agricultural produce. The impoverishment of the small farmers is continuing in the United States and agricultural production is being to an ever greater extent concentrated at large capitalist farms.

p Characteristic of the US agriculture is the high degree of regional and branch specialisation. The leading position is occupied by highly productive animal husbandry. Dairy cattle-breeding is developed in the Great Lakes area and in a number of eastern states. There are some 110 million head of cattle in the country. Sheep-breeding is carried on in the mountain West. Pig-breeding is concentrated in the vicinity of cities. Wheat is grown in the states bordering on Canada. The average annual wheat harvest is 40 million tons. Large areas are sown to corn (annual harvest up to 120 million tons). Cotton, tobacco and citrus fruit are cultivated in the south.

p Transport is of decisive importance. Railways (total length of track in service 338,000 kilometres) handle the bulk of the internal freight turnover. There is also a ramified network of highways.

p Internal waterways are extensively used. Shipping is particularly heavy on the Great Lakes and the waterways of the Mississippi basin.

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p “The vast area of the United States, which is only slightly smaller than the whole of Europe,” Lenin wrote, "and the great diversity of farming conditions in the various parts of the country make absolutely imperative a separate study of the major divisions, each with its peculiar economic status.” Lenin said that the USA falls into three major economic regions: the industrial North, the former slaveowning South and the West, which was being colonised. These features of the economy and its distribution survive to the present day despite the serious changes that have taken place in the economy in the past half century. Economic development is characterised by acute rivalry between the powerful monopolies of the North, on the one hand, and the financial-industrial associations that have emerged in the South and West, on the other. Nevertheless, there are still considerable distinctions in the economic development of the North, South and West.

p The North, as it has been in the past, is the chief and economically the most advanced region of the United States. Spreading over a third of the country it has over 50 per cent of her population and about two-thirds of her financial and industrial potential. It accounts for a half of the marketable agricultural produce of the United States.

p The leading place in the North’s industrial complex is occupied by the manufacturing industry, particularly mechanical engineering. Over 80 per cent of the aggregate steel output and about 50 per cent of the electricity are produced in the North. In agriculture key positions are held by cattlebreeding (meat and dairy products), fodder production (80 per cent of the total corn harvest), wheat and vegetables. The North also accounts for 66 per cent of the US foreign trade turnover.

p In the economic respect the North is divided into two subregions: the Industrial East and the Northwest Centre.

p The Industrial East (New England, the Middle Atlantic states and the Great Lakes area), which occupies less than half the area of the northern region, accounts for over 80 per cent of the latter’s population and more than 90 per cent of its industrial output. The East has the country’s principal industrial cities: New York which stands on the Atlantic coast is a major industrial centre (population 16 105 million with environs), an ocean port, and a railway, highway and air terminal. About a third of its gainfully employed population work in the trade and financial sphere. Next comes Chicago (population 7 million with environs), an extremely important industrial, commercial and financial centre of the Great Lakes area. Chicago iron and steel industry annually produces up to 30 million tons of steel. The city’s engineering factories manufacture a variety of items ranging from powerful locomotives to electronic devices. Chicago with its famous meat-packing concerns is a great cattle market. Other important cities in the East are Boston, an industrial centre in New England, Philadelphia, the country’s second largest ocean port, Baltimore, a metallurgical, rocket-building and shipbuilding centre.

p In the vicinity of Niagara Falls stand Buffalo, a large industrial centre of the Great Lakes area, Cleveland, with its chemical, metallurgical and engineering industries and Detroit, famed for its automobile factories. Pittsburg on the slopes of the Appalachians is the traditional centre of mining and iron and steel industry.

p The Northwest Centre is an industrial-agrarian extension of the East. This subregion lies between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains. Here corn and wheat are grown and cattle are reared for meat and dairying. The processing industry is concentrated in Minneapolis, Kansas City and St. Louis.

p Almost equal in area to the North, the South is considerably behind it in economic development. The Second World War engendered industrial development in the South and now, besides producing oil, gas, coal and iron, it has a manufacturing industry. There are several important centres including Houston (oil refining), Wichita and Dallas (aircraft and rocket-building), and Aiken, Oak Ridge, Paducah and Amarillo (atomic industry).

p Supplying the country with oil, natural gas, iron ore, coal and uranium, the South enables the manufacturing industries to increase their production. It is also an important agricultural region specialising in the cultivation of cotton and also early vegetables, fruits and citruses.

p Washington, the capital (population about 3 million with environs), is coextensive with the District of Columbia which 106 is situated at the juncture of the North and the South of the country. About 50 per cent of the capital’s gainfully employed population are officials of government institutions and over a third work in the service industry and commercial organisations. There are many colleges, research institutes and cultural institutions in the capital.

p The West, though territorially the biggest portion of the country, has a lower population density and is economically less developed than other parts of the country. Mountains and deserts cover the greater part of its area. Economic activity is concentrated in river valleys, along transport routes and the coast.

p Industrial and agricultural production is mainly located in the Pacific states where the bulk of the region’s population resides.

p California is economically the most developed state on the Pacific coast and in the whole of the West. It is not so much the oil and chemical industries, but aircraft and rocket production, that determine the actual industrial profile of post-war California. At present it accounts for 20 per cent of the total US armaments production.

p Los Angeles (population over 7 million with environs) and San Diego are two of the biggest centres of war industry in California and the entire West. Hanford in the north has an atomic industry. San Francisco, the West’s second biggest city after Los Angeles, is an important industrial centre and ocean port.

p The mountainous states of the West cover an extensive area with occasional seats of the extractive industry, irrigated farming and pastoral cattle-breeding.

Thus, the United States, the world’s biggest capitalist country, is also a land of extremely varied local conditions and the most acute social contrasts. The political and economic development of the USA is taking place in an involved internal and international situation.