A. Compendious Work on the Socialist World Economic System

The principal feature of our age is the expansion of socialism beyond the boundaries of one country and its transformation into a world system. Whereas up to the second world war the Soviet Union, at the center of a hostile capitalist encirclement, had been the only country in which the ground was being broken for the building of a new society, today a mighty camp of socialist states has arisen, covering a territory equal to one fourth of the surface of the terrestrial globe and embracing a population of about 1 tiillion people.