Expropriation, gratuitous or compensated deprivation of property under duress, regardless of the consent of the owner, by private individuals or by the state in the interests of a definite class or of society as a whole. In the period of the primitive accumulation of capital, the bourgeoisie instituted mass expropriation of small peasant property, forcibly depriving peasants of the land, and ruined small-scale commodity producers, turning them into proletarians. Under capitalism, mass expropriation of small owners continues, intensifying under imperialism. Competition between capitalists themselves leads to big capital swallowing small and medium capital, to further concentration of capital and centralisation of capital, and concentration and centralisation of production in several hands. The centralisation of the means of production and the socialisation of labour lead to the elimination (expropriation) of capitalist property. With the triumph of the October Revolution in Russia, as well as the socialist revolutions in several other countries, the proletariat expropriated the means of production belonging to the capitalists and landlords and made them social property. The private property of small commodity producers (peasants, artisans) is not expropriated following the socialist revolution, but is converted into socialist property through the small commodity producers voluntarily forming cooperatives and being involved in building socialism, with the material and financial support of the socialist state.