ABSTRACT
Emigres from countries where socialism was weak and where it was suppressed by autocratic governments were especially bitter towards the leadership of the German Social Democrats. They had counted on Germany as the most advanced capitalist state with the biggest socialist party to begin a world-wide revolution. One reaction to the coming of war was to pick over the theoretical writings on imperialism which had emanated from Germany. German colonies were not in need of protection by a first-class sea power. Luxemburg believed that 'Germany's interest in other people's colonies was based not on the economic value of those colonies in themselves but on the desire to present a general challenge to the power of other capitalist states. In Germany since the foundation of the empire' in 1871 one could study the development of imperialism' condensed 'into the shortest possible space of time'. In Germany, banking was more concentrated, monopolies grew bigger and faster.
