To clarify the significance of imperialism, we shall cite precise data on the partition of the world by the so-called "great" (that is, successful in grand plunder) powers:

The partition of the world by the "great" slaveholding powers:

From this it is evident how the peoples who fought for the most part under the leadership of others for freedom in 1789–1871 have now, after 1876, transformed themselves—on the soil of highly developed and "overripe" capitalism—into oppressors and enslavers of the majority of the population and nations of the entire globe. From 1876 to 1914, six "great" powers plundered 25 million square kilometers, that is, territory 2½ times greater than all of Europe! Six powers have subjugated over half a billion (523 million) population in the colonies. For every 4 inhabitants of the "great" powers there are 5 inhabitants in "their" colonies. And it is well known that the colonies were conquered by fire and sword, that in the colonies the population is treated with savage brutality, that it is exploited in thousands of ways (through the export of capital, concessions, etc., deception in the sale of goods, subjection to the authorities of the "dominant" nation, and so forth and so on). The Anglo-French bourgeoisie deceives the people, saying that it is waging war for the freedom of peoples and Belgium: in reality it is waging war for the preservation of the disproportionately plundered colonies it has seized. German imperialists would immediately have freed Belgium and so forth, if the English and French had "in God's fashion" shared their colonies with them. The peculiarity of the situation lies in the fact that in this war the fate of the colonies is decided by war on the continent. From the standpoint of bourgeois justice and national freedom (or the right of nations to exist), Germany would unconditionally be in the right against England and France, because it is "deprived" of colonies, its enemies oppress incomparably more nations than it does, and its ally, Austria, where the oppressed Slavs enjoy, undoubtedly, greater freedom than in tsarist Russia, that veritable "prison-house of peoples." But Germany itself is not fighting for liberation, but for the oppression of nations. It is not the business of socialists to help the younger and stronger brigand (Germany) plunder the older brigands gorged on their plunder. Socialists must take advantage of the struggle between brigands in order to overthrow them all. To do this, socialists must above all speak the truth to the people—namely, that this war, in a threefold sense, is a war of slaveholders for the strengthening of slavery. First, it is a war for the strengthening of colonial slavery through a more "just" partition and further "amicable" exploitation of the colonies; second, it is a war for the strengthening of oppression over foreign nations within the "great" powers themselves, for both Austria and Russia (Russia far more so and far worse than Austria) are maintained only through such oppression, intensifying it through war; third, it is a war for the strengthening and prolongation of wage slavery, for the proletariat is split and crushed, while the capitalists gain, growing rich on war, inflaming national prejudices and strengthening reaction, which has raised its head in all, even the freest and most republican countries.