Financial Oligarchy, the top echelon of the monopoly bourgeoisie, personally representing finance capital. First of all, in this echelon are the big owners—- multi-millionaires, millionaires, owners of big industrial, trade and transport monopolies, banks and insurance companies. They directly, and through the holding system, control various businesses and entire industries at home and abroad, as well as the lives of millions of wage workers. Usually every country has several dozen of these owners, such as the Rockefellers, Morgans, Gianinis, Du Fonts and Fords in the United States; the Rothschilds, Lazards, Behrings and Schroeders in England; the Flicks, Hoesches, Haniels and Etners in West Germany; and the Wallenbergs and Boniers in Sweden. Depending on the specifics of. the historical development and the state system, the financial oligarchy in certain countries coalesces with the landed aristocracy or the "blood aristocracy”, by marrying into the families of the reigning dynasties. Personal wealth and the amount of stock owned is not the only criterion of belonging to the financial oligarchy. The socioeconomic status of individual groups is decisive. What is important is the ability to handle big capital whether it is yours or not, domestic or foreign, private or state, to hold key posts in production, sale and appropriation. In this connection top managers of big monopolies, who do not belong to the hereditary dynasties of multi-millionaires but who, due to their objective position in the system of monopoly exploitation and their profits, form part of the ruling class elite, representing and protecting the contemporary capitalist system, become a component of the financial oligarchy. In the context of state-monopoly capitalism, the financial oligarchy increasingly coalesces with the bourgeois state apparatus, the top echelons of government and military bureaucracy, which is a component of the military industrial complex. Their material interests are closely interwoven because of their joint participation in capital at home and abroad, of their mutual participation on boards, supervisory councils and corporations, of their participation on the boards of state enterprises and in various government consultative councils. The activity of a certain group of the financial oligarchy extends far beyond national boundaries and is entwined with the interests of groups in other countries. Thus, the capital of the financial group controlling West German electrical engineering monopoly Siemens is invested in most West European countries, in Canada, the United States, Brazil, South Africa and in several Asian countries. The group’s capital, production and sales network are interwoven with the electrical monopolies of the EEC countries, Japan, and with the American giants General Electric and Westinghouse. Therefore, the financial oligarchy is cosmopolitan in character. It controls much of the national wealth of the capitalist countries, and appropriates an increasingly greater portion of the national income. This is done through financial-monopoly groups 142 which are the aggregate of heterogeneous companies under single financial control: a group of owners (belonging to one family or clan or to one region) or a financial institution (bank, insurance, or investment company). The merging with the state apparatus and the use of state economic policy in their interest is one of the most important channels of enriching and building up the power of the financial oligarchy. Receiving fat orders, guarantees, subsidies and favourable credits from government bodies, the financial magnates make monopoly profits not only on their own capital but also on the capital they control, paying interest or dividends to the shareholders. The activity of the financial oligarchy is closely linked with the system of state-monopoly endeavours in adopting anti-crisis measures and economic programmes aimed at regulating, in the interests of the financial and monopoly groups, the process of reproduction of social capital and at keeping the capitalist system intact. In the foreign economic sphere it is manifested in the elaboration of joint strategy and tactics, including on questions of foreign trade, the export of capital and the granting of loans to other countries. Certain financial-monopoly groups are waging fierce struggle among themselves for positions in the economy at home and abroad, and for dominance in influencing government bodies. But on questions of the defence of the existing system and in exploiting the working people, in the struggle against their just demands and the confrontation with socialism and national liberation movement, the financial oligarchy acts as one.