V. DIVISION OF THE WORLD AMONG CAPITALIST ASSOCIATIONS
Monopolist capitalist associations, cartels, syndicates and trusts
first divided the home market among themselves and obtained more or less
complete possession of the industry of their own country. But under
capitalism the home market is inevitably bound up with the foreign
market. Capitalism long ago created a world market. As the export of
capital increased, and as the foreign and colonial connections and
“spheres of influence” of the big monopolist associations
expanded in all ways, things “naturally” gravitated towards an
international agreement among these associations, and towards the
formation of international cartels.
This is a new stage of world concentration of capital and production,
incomparably higher than the preceding stages. Let us see how this
supermonopoly develops.
The electrical industry is highly typical of the latest technical
achievements and is most typical of capitalism at the end of the
nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. This industry
has developed most in the two leaders of the new capitalist countries,
the United States and Germany. In Germany, the crisis of 1900 gave a
particularly strong impetus to its concentration. During the crisis, the
banks, which by that time had become fairly well merged with industry,
enormously accelerated and intensified the ruin of relatively small
firms and their absorption by the large ones. “The banks,” writes
Jeidels, “refused a helping hand to the very firms in greatest need of
capital, and brought on first a frenzied boom and then the hopeless
failure of the companies which had not been connected with them closely
enough.” [1]
As a result, after 1900, concentration in Germany progressed with giant
strides. Up to 1900 there had been seven or eight “groups” in the
electrical industry. Each consisted of several companies (altogether
there were 28) and each was backed by from 2 to 11 banks. Between 1908
and 1912 all these groups were merged into two, or one. The following
diagram shows the process:
GROUPS IN THE ELECTRICAL INDUSTRY
Prior to 1900: Felten & Lahmeyer; Guillaume
|
| Union A.E.G.
|
| Siemens Schuckert
& Halske & Co.
| Berg-
mann
| Kum-
mer
|
|
|
Felten & Lahmeyer
|_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ |
A.E.G.
(G.E.C.)
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-|
|
|
Siemens & Halske-
Schuckert
|_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ |
|
Berg-
man
_-_-_-_-_-| |
|
Failed in
1900
By 1912: A.E.G. (G.E.C.) Siemens & Halske Schuckert
(in close "co-operation" since 1908)
The famous A.E.G. (General Electric Company), which grew up in this
way, controls 175 to 200 companies (through the “holding” system),
and a total capital of approximately 1,500 million marks. Of direct
agencies abroad alone, it has thirty-four, of which twelve are
joint-stock companies, in more than ten countries. As early as 1904 the
amount of capital invested abroad by the German electrical industry was
estimated at 233 million marks. Of this sum, 62 million were invested in
Russia. Needless to say, the A.E.G. is a huge “combine”—its
manufacturing companies alone number no less than sixteen—producing
the most diverse articles, from cables and insulators to motor-cars and
flying machines.
But concentration in Europe was also a component part of the process of
concentration in America, which developed in the following way:
General Electric Company
United States: Thomas-Houston Co.
establishes a firm in
Europe
Edison Co. establishes in Eu-
rope the French Edison Co.
which transfers its patents to
the German firm
Germany: Union Electric Co. General Electric Co. (A.E.G.)
Thus, two electrical “great powers” were formed: “there are no
other electrical companies in the world completely independent of
them,” wrote Heinig in his article “The Path of the Electric
Trust”. An idea, although far from complete, of the turnover and the
size of the enterprises of the two “trusts” can be obtained from the
following figures:
Turnover
(000,000
marks)
Number of
employees Net profits
(000,000
marks)
America: General Electric Co:
(G.E.C)
1907
1910
252
298 28,000
32,000 35.4
45.6
Germany: General Electric Co:
(A.E.G.)
1907
1911 216
362 30,700
60,800 14.5
21.7
And then, in 1907, the German and American trusts concluded an
agreement by which they divided the world between them. Competition
between them ceased. The American General Electric Company (G.E.C.)
“got” the United States and Canada. The German General Electric
Company (A.E.G.) “got” Germany, Austria, Russia, Holland, Denmark,
Switzerland, Turkey and the Balkans. Special agreements, naturally
secret, were concluded regarding the penetration of “daughter
companies” into new branches of industry, into “new” countries
formally not yet allotted. The two trusts were to exchange inventions
and experiments. [2]
The difficulty of competing against this trust, actually a single
world-wide trust controlling a capital of several thousand million, with
“branches”, agencies, representatives, connections, etc., in every
corner of the world, is self-evident. But the division of the world
between two powerful trusts does not preclude redivision if the relation
of forces changes as a result of uneven development, war, bankruptcy,
etc.
An instructive example of an attempt at such a redivision, of the
struggle for redivision, is provided by the oil industry.
“The world oil market,” wrote Jeidels in 1905, “is even today
still divided between two great financial groups—Rockefeller’s
American Standard Oil Co., and Rothschild and Nobel, the controlling
interests of the Russian oilfields in Baku. The two groups are closely
connected. But for several years five enemies have been threatening
their monopoly” [3] : (1) the exhaustion of the American oilfields;
(2) the competition of the firm of Mantashev of Baku; (3) the Austrian
oilfields; (4) the Rumanian oilfields; (5) the overseas oilfields,
particularly in the Dutch colonies (the extremely rich firms, Samuel,
and Shell, also connected with British capital). The three last groups
are connected with the big German banks, headed by the huge Deutsche
Bank. These banks independently and systematically developed the oil
industry in Rumania, for example, in order to have a foothold of their
“own”. In 1907, the foreign capital invested in the Rumanian oil
industry was estimated at 185 million francs, of which 74 million was
German capital. [4]
A struggle began for the “division of the world”, as, in fact, it
is called in economic literature. On the one hand, the Rockefeller
“oil trust” wanted to lay its hands on everything; it formed a
“daughter company” right in Holland, and bought up oilfields in
the Dutch Indies, in order to strike at its principal enemy, the
Anglo-Dutch Shell trust. On the other hand, the Deutsche Bank and the
other German banks aimed at “retaining” Rumania “for themselves”
and at uniting her with Russia against Rockefeller. The latter possessed
far more capital and an excellent system of oil transportation and
distribution. The struggle had to end, and did end in 1907, with the
utter defeat of the Deutsche Bank, which was confronted with the
alternative: either to liquidate its “oil interests” and lose
millions, or submit. It chose to submit, and concluded a very
disadvantageous agreement with the “oil trust”. The Deutsche Bank
agreed “not to attempt anything which might injure American
interests”. Provision was made, however, for the annulment of the
agreement in the event of Germany establishing a state oil monopoly.
Then the “comedy of oil” began. One of the German finance kings,
von Gwinner, a director of the Deutsche Bank, through his private
secretary, Stauss, launched a campaign for a state oil monopoly. The
gigantic machine of the huge German bank and all its wide
“connections” were set in motion. The press bubbled over with
“patriotic” indignation against the “yoke” of the American
trust, and, on March 15, 1911, the Reichstag, by an almost unanimous
vote, adopted a motion asking the government to introduce a bill for the
establishment of an oil monopoly. The government seized upon this
“popular” idea, and the game of the Deutsche Bank, which hoped to
cheat its American counterpart and improve its business by a state
monopoly, appeared to have been won. The German oil magnates already saw
visions of enormous profits, which would not be less than those of the
Russian sugar refiners.... But, firstly, the big German banks quarrelled
among themselves over the division of the spoils. The
Disconto-Gesellschaft exposed the covetous aims of the Deutsche Bank;
secondly, the government took fright at the prospect of a struggle with
Rockefeller, for it was very doubtful whether Germany could be sure of
obtaining oil from other sources (the Rumanian output was small);
thirdly, just at that time the 1913 credits of a thousand million marks
were voted for Germany’s war preparations. The oil monopoly project
was postponed. The Rockefeller “oil trust” came out of the struggle,
for the time being, victorious.
The Berlin review, Die Bank, wrote in this connection that Germany
could fight the oil trust only by establishing an electricity monopoly
and by converting water-power into cheap electricity. “But,” the
author added, “the electricity monopoly will come when the producers
need it, that is to say, when the next great crash in the electrical
industry is imminent, and when the gigantic, expensive power stations
now being put up at great cost everywhere by private electrical
concerns, which are already obtaining certain franchises from towns,
from states, etc., can no longer work at a profit. Water-power will then
have to be used. But it will be impossible to convert it into cheap
electricity at state expense; it will also have to be handed over to a
‘private monopoly controlled by the state’, because private
industry has already concluded a number of contracts and has stipulated
for heavy compensation.... So it was with the nitrate monopoly, so it is
with the oil monopoly, so it will be with the electric power monopoly.
It is time our state socialists, who allow themselves to be blinded by a
beautiful principle, understood, at last, that in Germany the monopolies
have never pursued the aim, nor have they had the result, of benefiting
the consumer, or even of handing over to the state part of the
promoter’s profits; they have served only to facilitate, at the
expense of the state, the recovery of private industries which were on
the verge of bankruptcy. [5]
Such are the valuable admissions which the German bourgeois economists
are forced to make. We see plainly here how private and state monopolies
are interwoven in the epoch of finance capital; how both are but
separate links in the imperialist struggle between the big monopolists
for the division of the world.
In merchant shipping, the tremendous development of concentration has
ended also in the division of the world. In Germany two powerful
companies have come to the fore: the Hamburg-Amerika and the
Norddeutscher Lloyd, each having a capital of 200 million marks (in
stocks and bonds) and possessing shipping tonnage to the value of 185 to
189 million marks. On the other hand, in America, on January 1, 1903,
the International Mercantile Marine Co., known as the Morgan trust, was
formed; it united nine American and British steamship companies, and
possessed a capital of 120 million dollars (480 million marks). As early
as 1903, the German giants and this American-British trust concluded an
agreement to divide the world with a consequent division of profits. The
German companies undertook not to compete in the Anglo-American traffic.
Which ports were to be “allotted” to each was precisely stipulated;
a joint committee of control was set up, etc. This agreement was
concluded for twenty years, with the prudent provision for its annulment
in the event of war. [6]
Extremely instructive also is the story of the formation of the
International Rail Cartel. The first attempt of the British, Belgian and
German rail manufacturers to form such a cartel was made as early as
1884, during a severe industrial depression. The manufacturers agreed
not to compete with one another in the home markets of the countries
involved, and they divided the foreign markets in the following quotas:
Great Britain, 66 per cent; Germany, 27 per cent; Belgium, 7 per cent.
India was reserved entirely for Great Britain. Joint war was declared
against a British firm which remained outside the cartel, the cost of
which was met by a percentage levy on all sales. But in 1886 the cartel
collapsed when two British firms retired from it. It is characteristic
that agreement could not be achieved during subsequent boom periods.
At the beginning of 1904, the German steel syndicate was formed. In
November 1904, the International Rail Cartel was revived, with the
following quotas: Britain, 53.5 per cent; Germany, 28.83 per cent;
Belgium, 17.67 per cent. France came in later and received 4.8 per cent,
5.8 per cent and 6.4 per cent in the first, second and third year
respectively, over and above the 100 per cent limit, i.e., out of a
total of 104.8 per cent, etc. In 1905, the United States Steel
Corporation entered the cartel; then Austria and Spain. “At the
present time,” wrote Vogelstein in 1910, “the division of the world
is complete, and the big consumers, primarily the state railways—since
the world has been parcelled out without consideration for their
interests—can now dwell like the poet in the heavens of Jupiter.”
[7]
Let me also mention the International Zinc Syndicate which was
established in 1909 and which precisely apportioned output among five
groups of factories: German, Belgian, French, Spanish and British; and
also the International Dynamite Trust, which, Liefmann says, is “quite
a modern, close alliance of all the German explosives manufacturers who,
with the French and American dynamite manufacturers, organised in a
similar manner, have divided the whole world among themselves, so to
speak”. [8]
Liefmann calculated that in 1897 there were altogether about forty
international cartels in which Germany had a share, while in 1910 there
were about a hundred.
Certain bourgeois writers (now joined by Karl Kautsky, who has
completely abandoned the Marxist position he had held, for example, in
1909) have expressed the opinion that international cartels, being one
of the most striking expressions of the internationalisation of capital,
give the hope of peace among nations under capitalism. Theoretically,
this opinion is absolutely absurd, while in practice it is sophistry and
a dishonest defence of the worst opportunism. International cartels show
to what point capitalist monopolies have developed, and the object of
the struggle between the various capitalist associations. This last
circumstance is the most important; it alone shows us the
historico-economic meaning of what is taking place; for the forms of the
struggle may and do constantly change in accordance with varying,
relatively specific and temporary causes, but the substance of the
struggle, its class content, positively cannot change while classes
exist. Naturally, it is in the interests of, for example, the German
bourgeoisie, to whose side Kautsky has in effect gone over in his
theoretical arguments (I shall deal with this later), to obscure the
substance of the present economic struggle (the division of the world)
and to emphasise now this and now another form of the struggle. Kautsky
makes the same mistake. Of course, we have in mind not only the German
bourgeoisie, but the bourgeoisie all over the world. The capitalists
divide the world, not out of any particular malice, but because the
degree of concentration which has been reached forces them to adopt this
method in order to obtain profits. And they divide it “in proportion
to capital”, “in proportion to strength”, because there cannot be
any other method of division under commodity production and capitalism.
But strength varies with the degree of economic and political
development. In order to understand what is taking place, it is
necessary to know what questions are settled by the changes in strength.
The question as to whether these changes are “purely” economic or
non-economic (e.g., military) is a secondary one, which cannot in the
least affect fundamental views on the latest epoch of capitalism. To
substitute the question of the form of the struggle and agreements
(today peaceful, tomorrow warlike, the next day warlike again) for the
question of the substance of the struggle and agreements between
capitalist associations is to sink to the role of a sophist.
The epoch of the latest stage of capitalism shows us that certain
relations between capitalist associations grow up, based on the economic
division of the world; while parallel to and in connection with it,
certain relations grow up between political alliances, between states,
on the basis of the territorial division of the world, of the struggle
for colonies, of the “struggle for spheres of influence”.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
[1] Jeidels, op. cit., S. 232. —Lenin
[2] Riesser, op. cit.; Diouritch, op. cit., p. 239; Kurt Heinig, op.
cit. —Lenin
[3] Jeidels, op. cit., S. 192-93. —Lenin
[4] Diouritch, op. cit., pp. 245-46. —Lenin
[5] Die Bank, 1912, 1, S. 1036; 1912, 2, S. 629; 1913, 1, S. 388.
—Lenin
[6] Riesser, op. cit., S. 125. —Lenin
[7] Vogelstein, Organisationsformen, S. 100. —Lenin
[8] Liefmann, Kartelle und Trusts, 2. A., S. 161. —Lenin
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