Economic Division of the World, one of the most important economic features of imperialism; a system of accords between the monopolies of the imperialist powers on the division of the world capitalist market (see World Market, Capitalist). The monopolisation of the economy of individual capitalist countries by the biggest companies and their emergence on the world market as a result of the increased export of capital and the expansion of other forms of foreign economic ties prepared the ground for the division of the principal commodity markets. Much of the manufacture and sale of many products on the world scale was in the hands of a small group of the biggest monopolies of the imperialist powers, thus creating conditions for establishing international cartels. Lenin said that the establishment of international cartels was "a new stage of world concentration of capital and production, incomparably higher that the preceding stages" (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.22, p. 246). He said that the main objective of the international cartels is to obtain monopoly-high profits. To this end markets and raw material sources were distributed among the participants, and monopoly-high or monopoly-low prices fixed. To raise prices, international cartels often agreed to limit growth or even reduce production, and retarded scientific and technological progress. In 1897, there were 40 international agreements on the division of world markets; in 1910, the number increased to 100; and by the beginning of the 1930s, it went up to 320. Prior to World War II, international cartels were the main form of international monopoly. The deepening of the general crisis of capitalism, the formation and strengthening of the world socialist system, and the collapse of the colonial system of imperialism, drastically changed the setting for the division of world markets by the international monopolies. They completely lost their sway over the countries which began building socialism. The newly free countries joined the struggle against the international monopolies. A mass-scale public movement emerged in the capitalist countries, too, against the activity of international monopolies and their practice of raising prices and retarding technological progress. The movement grew markedly when the collaboration of the international cartels with the fascist regimes was exposed. For these reasons the role of the “classical” cartels in the division of the world capitalist market declined in the postwar period, although, of course, agreements (very often secret and concealed from public view) are still concluded between the biggest monopolies of the imperialist powers on the division of world markets and the 102 establishment of monopoly prices. In the current period, new international monopolies— transnational (or multinational monopolies)—whose operations spread over the entire capitalist world, are playing an increasing role. In today’s complicated, multi-branch production, when developed forms of the international capitalist division of labour (see Division of Labour, Capitalist International) are expanding as a result of the extension of intra-branch specialisation and cooperation, much of the capitalist world’s production of certain goods is in the hands of the transnationals. This makes them monopolists in these branches, allowing them to dictate their conditions. At the beginning of the 1970s, the transnationals controlled about half of the industrial production of the capitalist countries, and 90 per cent of direct foreign investment. Imperialist integration (see Integration, Economic Capitalist) has played a definite role in the economic division of the capitalist world after World War II. It is aimed at creating better conditions for the monopolies of the countries participating in integrational groupings. Bourgeois economists and reformists, particularly Karl Kautsky, tried to prove that the rapid increase in international agreements on the divisions of world markets would lead to imperialism growing into ultraimperialism (see Theory of Ultraimperialism), in which competitive struggle fades away and the epoch of stable peace emerges. In fact, the division of the world between trusts, as Lenin pointed out, "does not preclude redivision if the relation of forces changes as a result of uneven development, war, bankruptcy, etc.” (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 248). The achievements of science and technology that constantly result in the appearance of new commodities and changes in the role of the old ones, the development of new deposits of raw materials and the depletion of known deposits, and other factors have an essential effect on the change of the relation of forces of the monopolies and make the recarving of markets inevitable. Where monopoly capital rules, the struggle for the economic domination of the world is unavoidable and expresses the essence of international imperialist relations.