(2) Its monopolistic position on the world market.
(3) Its colonial monopoly.
The effects are:
(1) The transformation of a section of the British workers into the middle class.
(2) The opportunity of leading it which part of the working class accords to a section corrupted by the capitalist class, or at least paid by it.
Now, the imperialism of the beginning of the 20th century has completed the division of the world amongst a very few States, each of which to-day exploits (i.e., draws surplus-value from) a part of the world scarcely less than England exploited in 1858. Each of them retains, by means of trusts, cartels, finance-capital, and the relations between debtors and creditors, a monopoly position on the world market. Each of them enjoys to some degree a colonial monopoly. (We have seen that, of 75,000,000 sq. km. of total colonial area, 65,000,000 sq. km., or 86 per cent. belong to six great powers: 61,000,000 sq. km., or 81 per cent. belong to three powers.)
The special feature of the present situation consists in such economic and political conditions as could not but intensify the incompatability between opportunism and the general and vital interests of the working class. Embryonic imperialism has become a dominant system; capitalist monopolies have come to occupy the chief place in economics and politics; the division of the world has been completed. On the other hand, instead of an un-
