State Capitalism, participation by the state in the capitalist forms of the economy. The essence of state capitalism is determined by the class nature of the state, the concrete historical situation, and specific features of the economy of the country concerned. One of the definitive elements of state capitalism in bourgeois society is state capitalist property, which emerges under pre-monopoly capitalism as a result of the building of new enterprises, mainly in the military industries financed by state budget. State capitalist property is expanded through the nationalisation of certain industries and entire sectors that are usually unprofitable; 338 thus the bourgeois state acts in the interest of the capitalists. There is also mixed property in the form of "mixed associations”, which are the result of the state buying shares of private capitalist companies and investing state funds in enterprises owned by private firms. In the imperialist countries state capitalism assumes the character of state-monopoly capitalism. In countries which have won independence following the collapse of the imperialist colonial system, state capitalism is a major way enabling the state to actively intervene in the economy and change the economic structure formed in the period of colonial or semi-colonial dependence. If progressive and democratic elements are at the helm of the state, it serves to combat foreign capital, undermine the economic foundations of foreign economic domination, and consolidate and develop the national economy, and in this way create the economic conditions necessary for these countries to embark on the non-capitalist path of development. State capitalism also exists during the period of transition from capitalism to socialism as a special way of subjugating the activities of capitalist enterprises to the dictatorship of the proletariat in order to prepare conditions for the socialisation of production on a socialist foundation. In the USSR state capitalism existed, but was not widespread, in the transition period; its major forms were the leasing of stateowned enterprises to capitalists, and concessions. It was also used in the transition period by other socialist countries as a way of transforming capitalist property into socialist property. From state purchases of products at fixed prices to agreements on processing at capitalist enterprises of raw materials supplied by state organisations and overall purchases of the products by the state and to mixed state and private enterprises—these are the ways by which private capitalist enterprises are transformed via state capitalism. In mixed enterprises, all means of production are virtually in the hands of the state. Former capitalists are entitled, for a certain period of time, to a share of the surplus product in the form of a definite percentage of the estimated value of their socialised property.