about. "Ten to fifteen million combatants" would take part. "There would be devastation, similar to that in the Thirty Years' War."
"If the war would be fought to a finish without inner movements, a state of exhaustion would result such as Europe has not experienced for two hundred years. AMERICAN INDUSTRY WOULD THEN WIN ALL ALONG THE LINE AND WOULD SET US ALL BEFORE THE ALTERNATIVE: either a relapse to pure agriculture for our own needs (American grain forbids any other kind), or—SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION."
Engels thus foresees the imperialist World War and the resulting world monopoly of American imperialism. His prediction that under these circumstances Europe would relapse into pure agriculture has not been literally fulfilled. Its place has been taken by the specifically imperialist method of pillaging and subjugating old European industrial countries through the loans and investments of the Dawes system. The historical perspective sketched by Engels, however, remains unchanged; the monopoly of American finance capital is not to be compared with the former monopoly of British industrial capital. It cannot maintain itself for a long period of time; it is no monopoly in the true sense of the word. It must break down in consequence of the unequal development of the various imperialist powers, of the competition of British finance capital, and principally as a result of the rebellion of the working masses in Europe and the colonies. In the words of Engels, it sets "us all before the alterna-
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