et Pays-Bas and Société Génèrale) and of Berlin (Deutsche Bank and Disconto). Two of the most important Russian banks, the Russian Bank for Foreign Trade and the International Commercial of Petrograd, between 1906 and 1912 raised their capital from 44 to 98 million roubles, and their reserves from 15 to 39 millions, employing three-fourths German capital. The first belongs to the Deutsche Bank group, and the second to the Disconto. The worthy Agahd is indignant at the spectacle of the majority of the shares of these Russian financial houses in German hands, thus paralysing their Russian shareholders. And, naturally, the country which exports it funds reaps a splendid harvest. The Deutsche Bank, for instance, in putting the shares of the Siberian Commercial Bank on the Berlin market, kept them in its coffers for a whole year, and then sold them at 193 per cent. that is, at nearly twice their face value, making a profit of nearly 6 million roubles, which Hilferding calls "founders' profits."
Our author puts the total resources of the chief Petrograd banks at 8,235,000,000 roubles: from the point of view of the participation in them, or more exactly their control by foreign banks, he estimates it as follows: French banks, 55 per cent.; English, 10 per cent.; German, 35 per cent. Of this sum of 8,235,000,000 roubles of actual capital, 3,687,000,000 roubles, or over 40 per cent. falls upon the syndicates, Prodamet and Produgol—syndicates in the oil, metallurgical and cement industries. Thus the fusion of banking and industrial capital in Russia, corresponding to the formation of capitalist monopolies, has made great strides.
