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p The First World War (1914-1918), and the victorious socialist revolution that developed at the end of it in Russia, opened a new chapter in world history. Imperialism’s previously all-embracing political and economic system began to break up. Over an area of one-sixth of the world’s land surface, with a population then of 120 million, there arose and began to develop a fundamentally new social system. The productive forces of socialism began to be made an integral component of mankind’s productive forces.

p As a result of the formation of the first socialist state, capitalism could no longer dominate the world economy without limit, as before. An historically inevitable period of coexistence, struggle, and interaction began in the world economy and in world politics between two socio-economic systems based on fundamentally opposite modes of production.

p It is well known that imperialism exerted immense efforts in order to block this course of events. After the repeated failure of attempts to strangle the socialist system at birth by force of arms, the monopoly circles of the West took the line of economically and politically isolating the young Soviet Republic, whose economy had suffered enormously from civil war and foreign intervention.

p The monopoly capitalists thus endeavoured to reverse the processes in the world economy that expressed the vital needs of a further advance of society’s productive forces, but these plans to counteract the objective economic patterns of social development disclosed by Marxist-Leninist political economy also suffered one failure after another. As Lenin remarked:

p There is a force more powerful than the wishes, the will and the decisions of any of the governments or classes that are hostile to us. That force is world general economic relations, which compel them to make contact with us.  [49•1 

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p The forces of world reaction subsequently strove incessantly to put obstacles in the way of the building of a system of mutually advantageous international economic co- operation of countries with different socio-economic systems. The story of the moulding of this system has been one of consistent, persistent struggle by socialism and all mankind’s progressive forces to preserve a world division of labour and develop it on a new basis, and to establish truly equal commercial and economic, scientific and technical, and cultural relations between all countries. Success would have been impossible in that struggle if it had not corresponded to the real interests of nations and of the non-socialist countries, and also if it had not met the requirements of the objectively operating laws of social development, and if it had given a one-sided advantage to the socialist countries. Thus, even between the wars, the basis was laid for intricate, contradictory processes determining the most vital directions of the subsequent crisis development of capitalism’s world economic system.

p After World War I there was a comparatively rapid restoration and further expansion of production, and of the world economic links broken by the war, within contracted boundaries.  [50•1  But this growth took place on a background of further deepening of imperialism’s basic contradictions, a sapping of its colonial foundations, and an intensification of the unevenness in the development of separate regions and countries.

p At the same time the socialist mode of production was more and more clearly becoming a constituent part of the global economy of mankind, and was graphically demonstrating its vitality.  [50•2  The international standing of the Soviet Union was strengthened, and its external economic 51 relations extended, through intergovernmental agreements with several capitalist conn tries, certain former colonies and semi-colonies. The progress made in building socialism in the USSR, and the consolidation of its position on the international arena, where the foundations of a new world social system were being laid, became vital factors in the subsequent aggravation of the general crisis of capitalism.

p Growth of capitalism’s irreconcilable contradictions continued to play the determinant role in this process. Particularly convincing evidence of that was the world cyclical overproduction crisis of 1929-33, the greatest in scope, duration, and disruptive consequences in capitalism’s history, which simultaneously swept the industrially developed countries and their agrarian, raw material periphery. The crisis, which threw the economy of the capitalist world several years back, had a very negative effect as well on the whole system of imperialism’s global economic connections. By the end of the 30s the volume of international trade, and also of capitalist industrial production was below the level of 1913. Right up to the beginning of World War 11 the economies of most countries of the capitalist world had still not been able to recover fully from that crisis.  [51•1 

p At the same time the colonial foundations of the capitalist economy had- been markedly weakened. The successful anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples of the USSR and their achievements on the road of radical socio-economic reforms, stimulated an upsurge of the national liberation movement in many colonies and dependent countries, some of which had managed after World War 1 to win or retain their national independence. A crisis of the all-embracing colonial system began. The colonial powers, it is true, were then still able to avert the break-up of their empires. Without ceasing their struggle to redivide spheres of domination, they endeavoured as before to deprive the countries economically dependent on them of national sovereignty; and to that end imperialism repeatedly unleashed predatory wars (e.g. Italy’s aggression against Ethiopia, and Japan’s against China).

p Characteristically, however, not a single imperialist power could succeed, even in the initial stage of the general crisis 52 of capitalism, in turning any economically backward country into a new colony. While retaining a decisive position in the world economy, linance capital was forced to take into account in its expansionist policy not only the ‘strength’ and ‘capital’ of its imperialist rivals but also of the growing strength of resistance of the peoples of the countries exploited by them, who received every possible support from the iirst socialist country.

p World War II, which broke out as a result of the sharp aggravation of all capitalism’s contradictions at the end of the 30s, and of the striving of its most aggressive circles to strike a crushing blow against socialism and the national liberation movement, in the final count led to a further deepening of the crisis of the imperialist system, the boundaries of which contracted even further. The socialist mode of production became predominant in a number of countries in Europe and Asia, and a new phase opened in the economic competition of socialism and capitalism.

p The antagonism and interaction of the two opposing social systems became a determining feature of today’s world economy in the postwar years; in that connection it has become necessary, when studying the structural shifts and fundamental features of the postwar development of capitalism, to take into account at the same time the global tendencies of the growth of production, the more so that the long-term consequences of the scientific and technical revolution that has embraced the leading spheres of the productive activity of human society as a whole are beginning to have a mounting effect on both socialist and capitalist countries, and also on many developing ones.

p Analysis of the facts characterising these tendencies indicates that in the period under review mankind’s productive forces have attained a height hitherto unprecedented. The international exchange of scientific and technical knowledge and production know-how has reached a fundamentally new level. The infrastructure of world economic relations has also developed rapidly under the impact of the scientific and technical revolution on the basis of a national and international division of labour. On the whole, the volume of the aggregate product of all the countries of the world was more than four times as big at the end of the 70s as at the beginning of the 50s. There was also a marked increase in the main productive forces, viz., manpower (the 53 number of the world’s inhabitants rose by almost 75 per cen! in the same period).  [53•1 

p The list of that kind of quantitative indicators could, of course, be considerably extended, but the figures cited give a graphic idea of the sizable shifts that have occurred in humanity’s productive forces in the contemporary historical situation of competition of the two main modes of production and the corresponding two world socio-economic systems, namely the socialist and the capitalist.

p As Karl Marx remarked in a letter to P. V. Annenkov (28 December 1846),

p tho productive forces are therefore the result of practically applied human energy; but this energy is itself conditioned by the circumstances in which men find themselves.  [53•2 

p Which of the opposing world social systems has the advantage in creating conditions for growth of the productive forces can be judged from the following facts. On the whole, in the three decades of the 50s through to 80s, the rates of growth of national income and industrial output in the socialist countries belonging to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) were three time as high as in all the capitalistically developed countries taken together. The countries belonging to CMEA are the most dynamically developing economic community in the world. At the end of the 70s these countries, which have 10.2 per cent of tho world population, produced around one-third of the world’s industrial output. In 1968-79 alone the volume of the gross social product in the European members of CMEA increased more than fourfold, while that of all the developed capitalist countries increased by only 140 per cent. A natural consequence of the development of this tendency has been a considerable raising of the role of socialism in the world economy. At the beginning of 1980 the population of 54 countries not yet broken free from direct, colonial dependence was not more than 0.1 per cent of all mankind.

p The turn of the decade to the 80s was marked by further growth of the economic might of the countries of world socialism. As the Central Committee’s report to the 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union noted:

p Tho past few years have not, been among the most favourable for the national economies of some socialist states. Still, in the past ten years the economic growth rates of the CMEA countries have boen twice those of the developed capitalist countries. Tho CMEA members continued to bo the most dynamically developing group of countries in the world.  [54•1 

p At the same time the break-up of the colonial system was not limited to emancipation of the colonies, but also included semi-colonial and dependent countries. Throughout the long period of’the imperialist powers’ unlimited sway in the world economy the dominant tendency was to convert the latter into rightless colonies; in the postwar years another trend began to predominate, that of converting them into politically independent national states. Imperialism could not suspend the development of this tendency as well. In recent decades the overwhelming majority of semi-colonies and dependent countries, having thrown off foreign and proimperialist regimes, have also in fact broken free of imperialism’s system politically, and are no longer its reserve, as they used to be. With the all-round support of the socialist countries and international working-class movement, they are intensifying the anti-imperialist struggle for economic independence. As a result there has been a marked quickening of the growth rates of their economies. The total production of goods and services in the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America rose more than 320 per cent in the 50s to 80s, industrial output rising by 620 per cent and farm production by nearly 130 per cent.  [54•2 

p Their position in the world capitalist economy, however, remains extremely difficult and unequal. In spite of the fact that they have three-quarters of the population of the non-socialist world, they produced less than one-fifth of 55 that world’s gross output at the beginning of the 80s. The immense gap in levels of development between them and the group of imperialist powers historically built up under capitalism has continued to widen. In the first postwar years, for example, this gap, in terms of per capita GDP, was characterised by a ratio of 1 : 10, and at the beginning of the 80s by a ratio of more than 1 : 13. In the same period there was a marked reduction of the weight of the former colonial world in the turnover of the world capitalist market. This’matter will be examined in greater detail in Parts II and III.

p The capitalist economic system is more and more clearly demonstrating its incapacity to deal with the pressing socioeconomic problems of emancipated countries. The logic of history is convincing their peoples of the lack of perspective of development along the capitalist road.

p It is not fortuitous that many of the new national states, including some that are still largely enmeshed in imperialism’s world economic relations, are rejecting the capitalist road of development in their constitutions, under pressure of the broad public, and are proclaiming a line of building a socialist society in the long term.  [55•1 

p Leonid Brezhnev, characterising the significance of the countries liberated from colonial subjection that have taken the road of revolutionary, democratic transformations, and of countries with a socialist orientation in today’s world, said that at the 26th Congress of the CPSU:

p Development along the progressive road is not, of course, the same from country to country, and proceeds in difficult conditions. But tho main lines are similar. These include gradual elimination of the positions of imperialist monopoly, of the local 56 big bourgeoisie and the feudal elements, and restriction of foreign capital. They include the securing by the people’s state of commanding heights in the economy and transition to planned development of the productive forces, and encouragement of the cooperative movement in the countryside. They include enhancing the role of the working masses in social life, and gradually reinforcing the state apparatus with national personnel faithful to the people. They include anti-imperialist foreign policy. Revolutionary parties expressing the interests of the broad mass of the working people are growing stronger there.  [56•1 

p Monopoly capitalism is really losing its old opportunity to decide the fate of nations even within the shrunken framework of the world capitalist economy. The main point in the people’s national liberation struggle at the present stage of the general crisis of capitalism"is that it has been converted in practice into a fight against exploiter relations in general, both feudal and capitalist, in many countries. As Leonid Brezhnev has put it:

It is of exceptional importance that many of the countries that have achieved liberation have rejected the capitalist road of development and adopted a socialist orientation, setting themselves the goal of building a society free from exploitation.  [56•2 

And that, without doubt, is a very strong blow to capitalism’s positions as a whole as a world social system.

p A substantial socio-economic consequence of the collapse of the colonial system is the relative lowering of the role of expatriate capital in the economies of emancipated countries. Before independence almost all their industrial production was in the hands of foreign monopolies and was part of the economy of the imperialist system. Today broad measures have been taken in’many of them both to nationalise expatriate enterprises and establish public control over their activity, and to found their own national industry. There are few summarised, reliable facts in the international statistics on what proportion of industry remains under the direct control of expatriate monopolies, but varrious indirect indicators suggest that a considerable^part of the industrial potential of the developing countries, yielding more than 4 per cent "of gross world industrial output, has already passed out of such control.

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p Because of the effect of these tendencies, a further weakening of the imperialist powers’ positions in the world economy has become typical of the period of the general crisis of capitalism, which finds expression above all in the obvious undermining of their former hegemony in world industrial production. At the end of the 30s the monopolies of the capitalist countries (including colonies and dependent countries) in practice controlled around nine-tenths of total world industrial production; at the beginning of the 80s only a little more than half of it was under their control.

p The facts adduced here primarily bring out one of the decisive trends in the crisis of the imperialist economy, when the basic features and main peculiarities of contemporary world development are beginning to be determined by the working class and its offspring, the world socialist system, and no longer by the monopoly capitalists. The steady strengthening of the economic might of the socialist countries, the advance of the national economies of the new sovereign states, and the rapid development of mutually advantageous international economic relations between them are leading in turn to a marked limitation of the imperialist monopolies’ diktat in world economic relations, including those between developing and developed capitalist countries on the world market.  [57•1 

p Even the most persistent and subtle defenders and propagandists of the capitalist system are unable to deny the tendencies noted above, which are finding wide reflection in international statistics, and which express the main trends in the deepening of the contemporary crisis of the world capitalist economy. An ambivalent approach to these processes is therefore typical of capitalist politicians, economists, and sociologists, who are engaged in apologetics for imperialism. On the one hand, they prefer in every way to evade comparison of the long-term results of the development of the two world economic systems in their interconnections, and strive to avoid a comprehensive socio-economic analysis of these results. While the work of some leading capitalist scholars 58 undertakes to examine the dynamics of l4io economic growth of the opposing social systems today, it usually mentions the advances of socialism in passing as something irrelevant for an evaluation of the present-day level and the ensuing outlook for the global development of mankind’s productive forces. On the other hand, immense attention is paid in Western capitalist literature to another aspect of this problem, namely, the factors that continue to promote growth of production within the capitalist economy. These factors are usually considered out of context of the processes showing overtaking growth rates in the economy of the world socialist system.

p The ideologists of the capitalist system, glossing over its class and other antagonisms in every way, are relying on the development trends of social development in its industrial centres under the impact of the developing scientific and technical revolution. What lack of prospects can there he talk of, they ask, and even more what hopeless crisis of this social system, if capitalism’s productive forces still continue to grow, albeit unstably and with sharp fluctuations. The increase in the production capacity of the postwar world capitalist economy is thus advanced as the ‘weightiest’ argument to substantiate the ’historical stability’ of capitalism and consequently, as well, the flimsiness of the Marxist-Leninist analysis of the irreconcilable contradictions of its development.

p In fact the Marxist-Leninist theory disclosed another causal connection between the growth and internationalisation of social production under capitalism and its historical destinies, than that which its capitalist critics try to ascribe to it. The objective tendencies in the development of the capitalist mode of production are not leading to a stopping of growth of the productive forces, or to their stagnation, but on the contrary are leading to their accelerated advance compared with preceding formations. In the Manifesto of the Communist Party Marx and Engels wrote:

p The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society—Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish tho bourgeois epoch i’rom all earlier ones.  [58•1 

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p But does all that mean that, as the productive forces of capitalist society develop, its economic basis is perpetuated and becomes ever firmer and more unshakeable? The founders of Marxism-Leninism, in bringing out the inner contradictory dialectic of that development, demonstrated that it in no way contributes in the end to the consolidation of capitalism. It relentlessly undermines the foundations of this system, and forms the conditions within it necessary, for victory of a more advanced social system. By accelerating growth of the productive forces in its own class interests and internationalising them in every way, the capitalist class itself prepares the material and social conditions for destruction of the social formation created by it.

p The transition to monopoly capitalism, while heightening the unevenness and spasmodic character of its development, was marked by a further growth of capitalist production. In describing imperialism as the highest and last stage of capitalism, in which tendencies toward decay and growth of society’s productive forces predominated simultaneously, Lenin stressed that:

p it would bo a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain strata of tho bourgeoisie and certain countries betray, to a greater or lessor degree, now one and now another of these tendencies. On tho whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before; but this growth is not only becoming more uneven in general, its unovenness also manifests itself, in particular, in tho decay of tho countries which are richest in capital.  [59•1 

p The very substantial shifts in capitalism’s material basis in its imperialist stage graphically confirm the fundamental character of these tenets of Marxist-Leninist theory, which help us better to understand the action of the long-term trends in the world economy that predetermine the features and course of its development in today’s transitional period.

p As the general crisis of capitalism deepens, the world capitalist economy more and more sharply experiences the effect of the socialist and national liberation revolutions, the mounting militarisation of the economy, and of numerous military shocks and upheavals. The development of 60 production in all the countries of this economy has been repeatedly interrupted or held back by economic crises, but the objectively operating long-term tendency toward growth of society’s productive forces has still continued to make itself felt in the stage of imperialism as well (see Table 2). The economies of capitalist countries began to develop at particularly high rates after World War II, as witness the following facts. While the physical volume of industrial production within capitalism’s present boundaries increased Table 2 Mean Annual Growth Rales of Industry and International Trade in the World Capitalist Economy (in percentages) Period Industrial International production trade Table 3 Area and Population of the Countries of the Two Social Systems (as percentages of the world totals) 1881-1913 3.8 2.6 1913-1948 1.4 0.4 1948-19(50 4.8 6.5 1960-1973 6.1 8.2 1973-1981 1.9 3.5 by 240 per cent over the 33 years 1880 to 1913, and by (30 per cent during the next thirty five years, during which capitalism twice dragged mankind into world military catastrophe, it rose on the whole by a factor of 4.4 in the postwar period covered by Table 2 (1948-1981). Fundamentally new branches of industry, transport, and communications were developed then under the impact of the scientific and technical revolution. Internationalisation of social production was noticeably broadened and deepened; the physical volume of international trade on the world capitalist market rose nearly eightfold.

p The number of working people, and their vanguard the working class, increased on an unprecedented scale in the postwar decades. When Marx and Engels disclosed the very great revolutionary potential of the proletariat in the 61 Manifesto of the Communist Party, there were only around nine million workers in the whole world. At the beginning of the 1980s their numbers had increased nearly 50-fold. The working class has become the leader of the broad masses’ light for a revolutionary restructuring of society. And only in that struggle could the new social system arise that is going to replace capitalism.

Capitalism, Lenin said, creates its own grave-digger, itself creates the elements of a new system, yet, at the same time, without a ‘leap’ these individual elements change nothing in ths general state of affairs and do not affect the rule of capital.  [61•1 

These qualitative ‘leaps’ that deepen the crisis of capitalism were the socialist revolutions headed by the working class and the national liberation revolutions associated

Non-socialist countries Years Socialist countries , total capitalist countries and their colonies Area 1900 1923 1981 16.0 26.2 100 84.0 73.8 89.0 05.0 23.5 Population 1900 1923 1981 7.7 33.0 100 92.3 07.0 70.0 60.0 17.5 Sources- statistical publications of the League of Nations and United Nations.

Sourcfs: A. Schi^er. Politicliesh(iyft linrta. mira. Sprfirochnih (The Political Map of the World. A Handbook), Politi/.dat, Moscow, I960; UN Monthly Bulletin oi Statistics, 1082.

with them, which altered the political map of the world in a radical way during the decades of the twentieth century (see Table 3).

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p The patterns of the general crisis are not introduced into the world capitalist system from outside but are the natural result of its inner development and stem from the antagonistic nature of the capitalist mode of production itself, based on the exploitation of man by man and of some countries by others. The decisive consequence of the structural shifts under review was not a weakening but an unprecedented sharpening of the basic contradiction of capitalism, i.e. the contradiction between the constantly increasing social character of production and the capitalist, exploiter character of the appropriation of social labour. It is on that basis that all the other contradictions of modern capitalism and its world economy continue to develop.

p A thorough study of the capitalist economy of his time enabled Karl Marx to conclude that

the historical development of the antagonisms, immanent in a given form of production, is the only way in which that form of production can be dissolved and a new form established.  [62•1 

Lenin repeatedly stressed the paramount importance of extending this conclusion of Marx’s to analysis of the monopoly stage of capitalism, and pointed out, already at the beginning of the contemporary transitional epoch that:

it would be impossible to put an end to the rule of capitalism if the whole course of economic development in the capitalist countries did not lead up to it.  [62•2 

Capitalist economics lias repeatedly tried in this connection to give battle to Marxist-Leninist political economy on the problems of world economic crises, in which, as Engels put it, ’the contradiction between socialised production and capitalist appropriation ends in a violent explosion’.  [62•3 

p Many capitalist economists have tried with redoubled energy in the postwar period to demonstrate that capitalism would manage to enter a fundamentally new phase of development of the productive forces by means of new methods of economic policy and state-monopoly control, and that 63 the former instability and profound contradictions of the cyclic development of its economy would largely lose their force under the action of the capitalist state.

p The very facts of capitalist statistics, however, prove that since World War II, and throughout the preceding history of monopoly capitalism, not a single capitalist country has been able to avoid considerable cyclic fluctuations and slumps in its economy. Periods of relatively high growth rates have inevitably alternated with periods of low ones, and sometimes even with an absolute fall in production and trade. The gap between the highest and lowest mean annual growth rates of the gross product was almost fivefold on the whole in the 50s and 60s, and in world industrial production and international trade it was even greater (from—2.5 per cent to -\-Q.5 per cent and from—3 per cent to -\-13 per cent respectively). The three economic slumps suffered by the world capitalist economy in the 70s and early 80s, including that of 1974-75, the deepest since the war, as was brought out iu detail at the 26th Congress of the CPSU, confirmed with all obviousness the irrefutable fact that state-monopoly control of the economy has proved incapable of curbing capitalism’s elemental forces.  [63•1 

The new phenomena include an immense extension of the role of international monopolies in the economy of modern capitalism. It is their external economic expansion, unprecedented in scale and consequences, that lias largely determined the postwar features of the development of the world capitalist economy considered above.  [63•2  This expansion has acquired such a scale that the leading organs of the capitalist press and international economic organisations write about it with growing alarm. The special study Multinational Corporations in World Development made by UN experts said in particular:

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in the past quarter of a century the world has witnessed the dramatic development of the multinational corporation into a major phenomenon in international economic relations.  [64•1 

p The international monopolies, concentrating immense economic might in their hands, had gained control in the 70s of more than a liftli hotli of the production and the distribution of the aggregate social product of capitalist countries, and the lion’s share of their direct foreign investments and half of their home and foreign trade. The Soviet economist T. Ya. Belous, basing herself on these facts, has remarked:

p The international monopolies, which have developed as a result of the export and international interlocking of capital, are exerting an ever more decisive influence on the processes taking place in the economies and politics of modern capitalism. Their role in the postwar capitalist economy has increased steeply and continues to grow rapidly. No phenomenon of any significance in the economic and political affairs of capitalist countries, and in the whole system of their international relations, can now be fully evaluated and understood without analysing the activity of these monopolies.  [64•2 

p Among the long-term factors determining the specific features of the development of the postwar world capitalist economy, as we have already remarked, a very material role is played by the scientific and technical revolution developing in the postwar period. Monopoly capital is endeavouring to put its main stake on it in the struggle to consolidate its class positions and to raise the effectiveness of the development rates of production. This revolution, by encouraging growth and internationalisation of capitalism’s productive forces, has not simply led at the same time to reproduction on an ever greater scale and to an unprecedented sharpening of all former antagonisms immanent in the capitalist mode of production but has also given rise to new contradictions that are unresolvable for capitalism.

p The new phenomena include (1) the ever-growing contradiction between the immense growth possibilities opened up 65 by the scientific and technical revolution and the obstacles that modern capitalism is putting in the way of their employment in the interests of society as a whole; (2) the bundle of contradictions between the social character of production, rapidly increasing under the impact of this revolution, on the one hand, and the state-monopoly forms of controlling technical progress, on the other hand; (3) the rapid deepening (along with further growth of the antagonism between labour and capital in the countries of imperialism) of the gulf between the interests of the overwhelming majority of the nation and those of the financial oligarchy. The unnatural position, in which production complexes often serving more than one country remain the private property of a handful of millionaires and billionaires, is particularly obvious in tin’s situation. The need for the replacement of capitalist relations of production by socialist ones is becoming more and more pressing.

p The scientific and technical revolution is also furthering the rise of new forms of the manifesting of the unevenness of world capitalism’s growth. There has been a marked deepening of the gulf between various countries and groupings in the sphere of scientific research, and in the area of the application of the latest, most effective results of technical progress in the national economy. The U.S. monopolies broke away in this respect after World War II and forged ahead of the leading groups of the other capitalist powers. The ’technical gap’ between the major and minor powers grew visibly, and also that between the imperialist countries as a whole and the developing countries.  [65•1 

By intensifying the spasmodic character of the economic growth of individual countries, the revolution at the same time inordinately heightened the imbalance of the various spheres of the capitalist economy. The contradictory character of the development of industry and agriculture, of the extraction and manufacturing industries, of the ‘ 66 traditional’ industries and new ones, is growing. Under imperialism, when scientific and technical advances may be introduced mainly in the most highly monopolised enterprises, considerable changes arc taking place m the industrial structure of postwar capitalism. A number of the succeeding chapters will be devoted to analysing all these problems.