Since it reached the stage of imperialism in early 20th century, capitalism has developed a global system of workings and global relations on the basis of the law of combined and uneven development. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the collapse of the bureaucratic regimes in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, huge markets such as Russia and China became integrated into capitalism, making the system global in the full sense of the word. This development brought forth a discussion that revolved around this new stage of capitalism.
