Imperialism, the Last Stage of Capitalism/Chapter 6

by N. Lenin

CHAPTER VI.
The Division of the World Among the Great Powers

In his book on the Territorial Development of European Colonies, A. Supan, the geographer, gives the following brief statement of this development at the end of the 19th century:

Percentage of Territories belonging to the European
Colonising Powers, including United States.

		1876	1900	Increase
Africa	...	10.8	90.4	plus 79.6
Polynesia	...	56.8	98.9	plus 42.1
Asia	...	51.5	56.6	plus 5.1
Australia	...	100.0	100.0	—
America	...	27.5	27.2	minus 0.3

"The characteristic feature of this period," he concludes, "is, therefore, the division of Africa and Polynesia." As there are no unoccupied territories—that is, belonging to no State—left, in Asia and America, the conclusion of Mr. Supan must be extended. We must say that the characteristic feature of this period is the definitive partition of the earth—definitive, not in the sense that a new partition is impossible, for on the contrary new partitions are possible and unavoidable but in the sense that the colonial policy of the capitalist countries has completed the conquest of the unoccupied territories on our planet. For the first time, the world is completely shared out, so that in the future territories will only be able to pass from one possessor to another, instead of acquiring a possessor for the first time.

We are, therefore, passing through a peculiar period of world-wide colonial policy, attached by the closest of ties to the most recent phase of capitalist development, that of finance-capital. And so it is indispensable to dwell above all on the facts, in order to ascertain exactly what distinguishes this period from those preceding it, and from the present situation. In the first place, two questions of fact arise here. Is there to be observed an intensification of colonial policy, an intensification of the struggle for the colonies, exactly at the period of finance-capital? And how is the world divided up at present in this regard?

The American writer, Morris, in his book on The History of Colonisation^[1] sets out to give the total colonial possessions of Britain, France and Germany during different periods of the nineteenth century. He obtains, briefly, the following results:

Colonial Possessions.

	BRITAIN		FRANCE		GERMANY
	Area in mills. of sq. miles	Populat'n in millions	Area in millions of sq. mls.	Populat'n in millions	Area in millions of sq. mls.	Populat'n in millions
1815-1830	—	126.4	0.02	0.5	—	—
1860	2.5	145.1	0.2	3.4	—	—
1880	7.7	267.9	0.7	7.5	—	—
1899	9.3	309.0	3.7	56.4	1.0	14.7

For Britain, the period of vast colonial conquests is between 1860-1880; and the last twenty years of the 19th century are also of great importance. For France and Germany it is chiefly during these last twenty years that the gains are important.

For Britain, the period of vast colonial conquests is between 1860-1880; and the last twenty years of the 19th century are also of great importance. For France and Germany it is chiefly during these last twenty years that the gains are important.

We have seen previously that the limit of pre-monopoly capitalist development, of capitalism with a predominance of free competition, is between 1860 and 1870. We now see that it is just immediately following that period that the "boom" in colonial annexations begins, and that the struggle for a territorial division of the world becomes extraordinarily keen. It is, therefore, beyond doubt that the transition of capitalism to monopoly-capitalism, to finance-capitalism, is connected with the intensification of the struggle for the partition of the world.

Hobson, in his work on imperialism, marks the years 1884-1900 as being those of the greatest colonial "expansion" of the chief European States. According to his estimate, Britain acquired during these years, 3,700,000 square miles of territory with a population of 57,000,000 inhabitants; France acquired 3,600,000 square miles with a population of 36,000,000 inhabitants; Germany 1,000,000 square miles with a population of 14,700,000 inhabitants; Belgium 900,000 square miles with 30,000,000 inhabitants; Portugal 800,000 square miles with 9,000,000 inhabitants. The hunt of all the capitalist States for colonies at the end of the 19th century is a fact known in the history of diplomacy and of foreign affairs.

At the zenith of free competition in Britain, between 1840 and 1860, her leading capitalist politicians declared themselves against colonial policy, considering the emancipation of the colonies and their complete separation from the Mother Country as being not only inevitable but very desirable. M. Beer shows in an article on Modern British Imperialism, published in 1898, that in 1852, Disraeli, despite his general inclination to an imperialist policy, nevertheless declared: "The colonies are millstones round our necks." But at the end of the 19th century, the heroes of the hour were Cecil Rhodes and Joseph Chamberlain, the open advocates of imperialism and the most cynical exponents of imperialist policy.

It is not without interest to observe that at this time the political managers of the British bourgeoisie were fully aware of the connection between what might be called the purely economic and the politico-social roots of modern imperialism.

Chamberlain gave his blessing to imperialism by calling it a "truly wise and economical policy," and he emphasised above all the fact that Germany, America and Belgium were competitors against Britain in the world market.

Salvation, said the capitalist founders of cartels, syndicates and trusts, lies in monopolies. Salvation lies in monopolies, echoed the political leaders of the bourgeoisie, hastening to appropriate parts of the world not yet shared out.

Stead, the journalist, relates how Cecil Rhodes, his close friend, said to him in 1895, in connection with his imperialist ideas: "Yesterday I was in the East End at an unemployed meeting. I heard inflammatory speeches: but they all echoed only one cry: "We want bread! We want bread!" I thought about this on the way home, and I became more and more convinced of the importance of imperialism. My cherished idea provides a solution for the social problem. In order to save 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must take possession of new lands for peopling by the surplus population of this country, where we shall be able to find new markets for the goods produced in our factories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a question of the belly. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become an imperialist."

Thus, in 1895, spoke Cecil Rhodes, millionaire, monarch of finance, the man who was mainly responsible for the Boer War.

To tabulate as exactly as possible the territorial division of the world, and the changes which have occurred during the last ten years, let us take advantage of the data furnished by Supan in the work already quoted. Supan examines the years 1876 and 1900. We take by way of comparison, the year 1876—a year happily selected, for it is precisely at that time that the development of Western European capitalism, in its pre-monopoly stage, can be considered, generally speaking, as completed; and we take also the year 1914. We replace Supan's figures by the more recent statistics of Hübner (Geographical and Statistical Tables):

Supan studied only the colonies; we think it useful, in order to make the picture of the division of the world more complete, to add summarised information on the non-colonial and semi-colonial countries, such as Persia, China and Turkey. Persia is already almost completely a colony; China and Turkey are on the way to becoming colonies. We obtain the following results:

Colonial Possessions of the Great Powers.
(In millions of square kilometres and in millions of inhabitants)

	COLONIES				"HOME"		TOTALS
	1876		1914		1914		1914
	area	pop.	area	pop.	area	pop.	area	pop.
Britain	22.5	251.9	33.5	393.5	.3	46.5	33.8	440.0
Russia	17.0	15.9	17.4	33.2	5.4	136.2	22.8	169.4
France	.9	6.0	10.6	55.5	.5	⟨39.6⟩	11.1	95.1
Germany	—	—	2.9	12.3	⟨.5⟩	64.9	3.4	77.2
U.S.A.	—	—	.3	9.7	⟨9.4⟩	97.0	9.7	⟨106.7⟩
Japan	—	—	⟨.3⟩	19.2	.4	53.0	.7	72.7
Total	40.4	273.8	65.0	523.4	16.5	437.2	81.5	961.1
Colonies of other powers (Belgium, Holland, etc.)						...	9.9	45.3
Semi-colonial countries (Persia, China, Turkey).						...	14.5	361.0
Other countries ... ... ...						...	28.0	289.2
Total Area and Population of the World							133.9	1656.6

We see from these figures how complete was the partition of the world at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. After 1876 colonial possessions are extended to an enormous degree, growing from 40 to 65 million square kilometres in area. For the six biggest powers the increase is one of 25 million square kilometres, that is, one and a half times greater than the area of the "Home" countries, 16½ million.

In 1876 three powers had no colonies, and a fourth, France, had scarcely any. In 1914, these four powers had 14.1 million square kilometres of colonies, or an area one and a half times greater than that of Europe, peopled with nearly 100,000,000 human beings.

The unequal rates of development in acquiring colonial possessions are very marked. Comparing, for instance, France, Germany and Japan—countries in which the area and population are not very different—it will be seen that the first (France) has annexed almost three times as much colonial area as the other two combined. But in finance-capital, France was also, at the beginning of the period we are considering, perhaps several times richer than Germany and Japan together.

Apart from and on the basis of purely economic causes, geographical conditions and other factors influence colonial development. However strong, during the last few decades, the process of equalisation of the world, of levelling up the economic and living conditions in different countries, under the pressure of heavy industry, exchange and finance-capital, great differences also remain between the six great powers. We see young capitalist powers (America, Germany, Japan) progressing very rapidly, while countries with an old capitalist development (France and Britain) have made much slower headway of late; and, finally, there is Russia, the most backward country economically, in which the latest imperialist capitalism is enmeshed, so to speak, in a thick web of pre-capitalist relations.

Alongside of the colonial possessions of these great powers, we have placed the small colonies of the small States, which are the next possible and probable objects of a new colonial "share-out." Most of these little States only keep their colonies thanks to conflicting interests which prevent them from being divided up amongst the strong.

As for the semi-colonised States, they give us an example of the transitionary forms which are to be found in all domains of nature and society. Finance-capital is such a great, it may be said such a decisive force in all economic and international relations, that it is capable of subordinating itself, and actually does subordinate itself even to States enjoying complete political independence. We shall shortly see examples of this. But naturally it finds the greatest "convenience" and draws the biggest profits from a subordination involving the loss of the political independence of the countries and peoples in question.

In this connection the semi-colonised countries offer us a typical example of the middle course. It is natural that the struggle for these semi-dependent countries was bound to become particularly bitter during the period of finance-capital, the rest of the world being already shared out.

There was a colonial policy and an imperialism before the modern phase of capitalism, and even before capitalism. Rome, founded on slavery, carried out a colonial policy and gave effect to imperialism. But "general" reasonings on imperialism, which forget or tone down the fundamental difference of social-economic systems, infallibly degenerate into absolutely empty banalities, or into boasting, such as the comparison of the grandeur of Rome and the grandeur of Britain.^[2]

Even the colonial policy of capitalism in its previous phases is essentially different from that of finance-capital.

The principal characteristic of modern capitalism is the domination of monopolist alliances of the biggest capitalists. These monopolies are the most solid when all the sources of raw materials are controlled by the one group. And we have seen how furiously the international capitalist groups devote themselves to the task of making it quite impossible for an opponent to compete, by purchasing, for instance, all iron deposits or oil fields, etc. Colonial possession alone gives complete guarantees of success to the monopolies against all the risks of the struggle against competitors, including the possibility of the latter defending themselves by means of a law establishing a State monopoly. The more capitalism develops, the more the need for raw materials arises; the more bitter competition becomes and the more feverishly the hunt for raw materials proceeds throughout the whole world, the more desperate becomes the struggle for the acquisition of colonies.

Schilder writes: "There is a fact which will seem to some people paradoxical, viz., that the increase of urban and industrial population will suffer, sooner or later, much less from a shortage of raw materials for industry than from a shortage of necessities of life. Thus the shortage of wood is making itself felt. The price of wood is rising, like the price of leather, and the price of raw materials necessary for the textile industry. Associations of manufacturers are trying to strike a balance between industry and agriculture on a world scale; note, for instance, the International Federation of Cotton Spinners' Associations in several important industrial countries, and the European Union of Flax Spinners' Associations founded on the same model in 1910."^[3]

The bourgeois reformists, of course, attempt to diminish the importance of facts of this kind by saying that it "would be possible" to obtain raw materials on an open market without a "costly and dangerous" colonial policy; and that it would be "possible" to greatly increase the supply of raw materials quite "simply" by improving agriculture. But these suggestions transform themselves into an apology for imperialism, because they are founded on a neglect of the principal characteristic of modern capitalism: monopoly. Free trade is becoming more and more a thing of the past. The combines and trusts are restricting it daily. And as for the "simple" improvement of agriculture, it resolves itself into a question of improving the condition of the masses, of raising wages and lowering profits. But are there, excepting in the imagination of the reformists, any trusts capable of interesting themselves in the condition of the masses instead of the conquest of colonies?

The already-known sources of raw materials are not the only ones to interest finance-capital. It is also interested in possible sources of raw materials, because present-day technical development is extremely rapid, and because land which is to-day barren may be made fertile to-morrow with new processes, if big capital is devoted for that purpose. (To discover these new processes a big bank can equip a whole expedition of engineers, agricultural experts, etc.) This also applies to boring for materials, etc. Hence the inevitable tendency of finance-capital to extend its economic territory and even its uneconomic territory. In the same way that the trusts capitalise their property by estimating it at two or three times its value, taking into consideration its "possible" future revenues and the further results of monopoly, so finance-capital tends in general to take possession of the greatest area of land of any and every kind in any and every place and in any and every way, estimating possibilities of finding raw materials there, and fearing to be left behind in the insensate struggle for the last available scraps of unappropriated territory, or for the re-partition of that which was already appropriated.

The British capitalists are performing prodigies in order to develop cotton growing in their Egyptian colony. (In 1904, out of 2.3 million hectares of land under cultivation, 0.6 millions, or more than a quarter, were devoted to cotton growing.) The Russians are doing the same in their colony, Turkestan. And in each case it is because they can thus beat their competitors more easily, and more easily achieve the monopolisation of the sources of raw materials and the formation of a united textile trust, economical and profitable, embracing all the processes of production and of manufacturing under a single control.

The interests which export capital press on in their turn to the conquest of colonies, for it is easier on the colonial market—and sometimes it is only possible on the colonial market—to drive away a competitor by means of monopoly, to make sure of orders, to strengthen the necessary "connections," etc.

The non-economic super-structure which grows up on the basis of finance-capital, its politics and its ideology, supports the tendency to colonial conquest. "Finance-capital does not want liberty, it wants domination," as Hilferding very truly says. And a French bourgeois writer, developing and supplementing, as it were, the ideas of Cecil Rhodes, whom we previously mentioned, writes that social causes should be added to the economic causes of modern colonial policy.

"As a result of the increasing complexity of life, a complexity and a difficulty weighing not only on the working masses, but also on the middle classes, impatience, irritation and hatred are accumulating in all the countries of the old civilisation, and are a menace to public calm. Energy, rising out of the rut of a class, must be found employment and an outlet abroad, so as to prevent an explosion within."^[4]

Once we are speaking of colonial policy in the period of capitalist imperialism, it is indispensable to note that finance-capital and the international policy which is proper to it, and which resolves itself into the struggle of the great Powers for the and political division of the world, gives rise to a number of transitional forms of State dependence. And the division into two principal groups of countries—possessors of colonies and colonised areas—is not sufficient to characterise the period. It is necessary to take into account the various kinds of dependence of countries which are politically independent in form but are surrounded in reality with a fine network of financial and diplomatic bonds. We have already drawn attention to the semi-colonies; they give effect to one of these forms of dependence. Here is another of which Argentina provides us with an example.

"South America, and especially Argentina," writes Schulz-Gaevernitz in his work on British Imperialism, "is so dependent financially on London that it must almost be called a commercial colony of England."^[5] The capital invested by England in Argentina, was estimated by Schilder, on the information of the Austro-Hungarian consul at Buenos Aires, to be worth in 1909, 8,750 millions of francs. It is not difficult to imagine what solid bonds, consequently, finance-capital (and its faithful ally, diplomacy) create between Britain and the Argentine bourgeoisie, what influence it guarantees Britain with those who control all the economic and political life of the country.

The example of Portugal shows us a somewhat different form of financial and diplomatic dependence coinciding with political independence. Portugal is an independent sovereign State. But in fact, for more than two hundred years, since the war of the Spanish Succession (1700-1714), it has been under British protection. The British have defended Portugal and its colonies in order to fortify their own positions against Spain and France. In return they have received commercial advantages, preferential import of goods and, above all, of capital into Portugal and the Portuguese colonies, the right to use the ports and islands of Portugal, its telegraph cables, etc.^[6]

Relations of this kind, between big and little States, have always existed. But during the period of capitalist imperialism they become a general system, they form a part of the process of dividing up the world, they constitute, in short, one of the links in the chain of operations of world finance-capital.

Before leaving the question of the division of the world, we have still to remark the following. American literature after the Spanish-American war, and English literature after the Boer War, clearly and definitely stated this question at the end of the 19th century. German literature which always follows "zealously" on the track of "British Imperialism," systematically recorded its progress. This is not all. French bourgeois literature raises the question in terms as wide and clear as it is possible to do so from the bourgeois point of view. Let us quote Ed. Driault, the historian, who wrote the following in his book, "Social and Political Problems at the End of the XIX Century," in the chapter on the great powers and the division of the world:

"During recent years, all the free territory on the earth, with the exception of China, has been occupied by the powers of Europe and North America. Many conflicts have already occurred over this matter, and many displacements of interest foreshadow in the near future conflagrations which will be much more terrible. For it is necessary to make haste. The nations which are not provided with colonies run the risk of never receiving their share, and never participating in the tremendous exploitation of the earth which will be one of the essential features of the next century (i.e., the 20th). That is why all Europe and America has lately become seized by the fever of the colonial expansion of 'imperialism,' that most characteristic and most noteworthy feature of the end of the 19th century." And the author adds: "In this partition of the world, in this furious pursuit of the treasure, and of the big markets of the earth, the comparative forces of the empires founded in the 19th century are totally out of proportion with the place occupied in Europe by the nations who founded them. The dominant powers in Europe, those which decide the destinies of the Continent, are not similarly preponderant in the whole of the world. And, as colonial power, the hope of controlling hitherto unknown wealth, will obviously influence the relative strengths of the European powers, the colonial question—'imperialism' if you prefer it—which has already transformed the political conditions of Europe, will modify them more and more as time goes on."^[7]

1. 68.—Henry C. Morris: "The History of Colonisation," New York, 1900, ii., p.88; i., pp. 304, 410.
2. 69.—C. P. Lucas: "Greater Rome and Greater Britain," Oxford, 1912. Cromer: "Ancient and Modern Imperialism," London, 1910.
3. 70.—Schilder, op. cit., pp. 38-42.
4. 71.—Wahl: "La France aux colonies," Paris, n.d., quoted by Henri Russier in "Le partage de l'Oceanie," Paris, 1905, p. 165.
5. 72.—Schulze-Gaevernitz: "Britischer Imperialismus und Englischer Freihandel zu Beginn des 20 Jahrhunderts," Liepzig, 1906, p. 318.; Sartorius v. Waltershausen writes to the same effect: "Das volkswirtschaftliche System der Kapitalsanlage im Auslande," Berlin, 1907, p. 46.
6. 73.—Schilder, i., pp. 160-161.
7. 74.—Driault: "Les Problèmes politiques et sociaux," 1907, p. 299.

Layout 2