MARX, HISTORICAL MATERIALISM AND THE

ASIATIC WDE OF PRODUCTION

BY

Joseph Bensdict Huang Tan

B.A. (Honors) Simon Fraser Univers i ty 1994

THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS IN THE SCHOOL

OF COMMUN ICAT ION

@Joseph B. Tan 2000

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

July 2000

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ABSTRACT

H i s t o r i c a l mater ia l i sm (HM), t h e theory of h i s t o r y

o r i g i n a l l y developed by Marx and Engels is most comrnonly

i n t e r p r e t e d a s a unilinear model, which d i c t a t e s t h a t a l 1

s o c i e t i e s must pass through d e f i n i t e and u n i v e r s a l l y similar

s t a g e s on t h e r o u t e t o communism. This s i m p l i s t i c i n t e r p r e t a t i o n

e x i s t e d long before S t a l i n and has p e r s i s t e d long a f t e r the

process of de-S ta l in iza t ion and i n t o t h e p r e s e n t . Th i s

i n t e r p r e t a t i o n has caused many t h e o r e t i c a l and p r a c t i c a l

problems over t h e years f o r Marxism. Most notably, a

t e l e o l o g i c a l i n t e r p r e t a t i o n d e n i g r a t e s t h e importance of the

a c t i v e or conscious s i d e of HM and l eads t o t h e widespread

acceptance of a h i s r a r i c a l f a t a l i s m i n t h e f i e l d of theory and

p o l i t i c a l quie t i sm i n p lace o f conscious c l a s s s t r u g g l e and

revo lu t ionary p o l i t i c s .

The A s i a t i c mode o f product ion (AMP) o f f e r s concre te

evidence t h a t Marx and Engels, as well as genera t ions of

Marxis ts proceeding them, understood hurnan h i s t o r y a s a very

d i f f e r e n t , and much more cornplex, rnu l t i l inea r t o t a l i t y . This

t h e s i s will prove t h a t d e s p i t e i t s c o n t r o v e r s i a l na tu re , t h e AMP

c o n s i s t e n t l y remained an i n t e g r a l a spec t of Marx and Engels'

model of HM throughout t h e i r l i v e s , It will be argued t h a t t h e

two au thors r development o f t h e AMP spanned many decades and was

based on c a r e f u l and considered a n a l y s i s of how h i s t o r i c a l

developments i n o t h e r p a r t s of t h e world both conformed and . . * lu

diverged from the five stage mode1 of development they had

extrapolated from the history of Europe. This thesis will also

suggest that the two authors were undogrnatic and flexible in

their treatment and understanding of historical phenomena, often

willing to change or adapt their conception of HM, and the

historical process in general, to accommodate new facts and

empirical evidence as these arose or manifested themselves. It

will be argued that it was precisely the 'abandonment' of the

AMP by later Marxists which helped, in part, facilitate the

widespread acceptance of unilinear interpretations of historical

materialism.

An acceptance of the AMPfs existence definitively

demolishes any unilinear understanding of the historical process

and hence, eliminates the notions of fatalism and historical

inevitability from revolutionary Marxism. Thus, the thesis ends

with a reaffirmation of the centrality of class struggle, not

just in the thoughts of Marx and Engels, but also for the

altered historical reality of a post-communist 21St century. It

concludes by arguing that the choice, first offered to humanity

by Rosa Luxemburg over 80 years ago, is more pertinent and

urgent than ever before: "socialism or barbarism".

Table o f Contents

Approval. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii Abstrrct. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

Table of Contents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

L i s t o f figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v i

Prefrce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v i i

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Chapter One: The Controversial Nature of the Asiatic Mode

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ofProduction. . . 0

Chapter Two: The Origins of the Asiatic Mode of Production

i n the Thought of Marx and Engels. . . . . . . .43

Chapter Three: The Place of the Asiatic Mode of Production

Within Historical Mat.rirlism. . . . . . . . . . . . . .83

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion. .124

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography. .129

L i s t of Figures

Figure 1: Melottirs multilinaar mo&l of historical

blstsrialirm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Pref ace

1 originally intended to launch into a big anti-capitalist

rant in this preface. 1 was going ta point out how capitalism is

an obscene, exploitative, destructive and irrational form of

social organization that must be attacked, destroyed and

thoroughly abolished by humanity before it soon kills the world.

1 was also going to point out how, in the unrelenting long scale

of historical time, it is capitalismCs own ruthlessly efficient

destructiveness which is destined to make it the most transient,

fleeting and, ultimately, short-lived mode of production in al1

of human history. But 1 realized that there is nothing 1 could

Say that has not been said far more elegantly, forcefully and

eloquently by generations of revolutionaries before me. Instead,

the following quote by the most brilliant mind in human history

succinctly summarizes my thoughts and feelings about the need

for humanity to finally transcend this most glorious-and

nightmarish-phase in our existence:

From the standpoint of a higher economic form of society, private ownership of the globe by single individuals will appear quite as absurd as private ownership of one man (sic) by anather. Even a whole society, a nation, or even al1 simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the globe. They are only its possessors, its usufructuaries, and, like boni patres familias, they must hand it d o m ta succeeding generations in ar? improved condition. '

' K a r l M a r x , C a p i t a l : A C r i t i q u e of Pol i t ica l Economy, Volume 3 . E d i t e d by F r e d e r i c k Engels. (Moscow: P r o g r e ç s P u b l i s h e r s , 1977), p. 776

Introduction

The Asiatic mode of production ( N P ) has had a strange and

insecure existence within Marxist theory. It has had an even

stranger, star-crossed relationship with the theory of history

which it nominally rernains a part of, historical materialism.

More than any other concept, the theoretical status of the AMP

has never been fully secure or finalized within a theory of

history that was, and is, forever in the process of being

altered, revised and revitalized in order to comprehend a

historical movement that is itself forever in flux.

To some Marxists, the AMP was nothing more than an

embarrassing display of Eurocentric arrogance on the part of

Marx and Engels, a theoretical mistake which was founded upon a

misinterpretation of the historical situation in Asia and which

was soon forgotten and abandoned by both authors. To others, the

AMP is not only a central component of historical materialism,

but also forms the foundation upon which Marx's entire analysis

of capitalist political economy was built upon.

Over the years, a great number of Marxists have attempted,

for a variety of reasons (including sheer ignorance of its

importance and relevance to historical materialism) to remove

the AMP from the arsenal of Marxism and deny its well documented

existence in the writings of Marx and Engels. Many of the

reasons for this denial (theoretical expediency, the immediate

requirements of polemical debate and political strategy-

inc luding t h e defense o f t h e b u i l d i n g o f Socia l i sm i n One

Country i n t h e USSR, etc.) are discussed i n detail i n t h i s

t h e s i s . To varying degrees, t h e s e reasons a l 1 c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h e

eventual ' o f f i c i a l a b o l i t i o n 1 of t h e AMP i n a 1931 Communist

Pa r ty conference i n Leningrad and i t s subsequent e l i m i n a t i o n

from o f f i c i a l Marxist 'orthodoxy'.

However, it w i l l be argued t h a t t h e s i n g l e , most

over r id ing reason f o r both t h e d e s i r e t o deny and abandon t h e

AMP, a s w e l l a s t h e o b s t i n a t e r e f u s a l t o resume resea rch i n t o

t h i s s o c i a l formation, has been t h e long-standing hegemony of

u n i l i n e a r i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s of h i s t o r i c a l mater ia l i sm. Contxary t o

conventional b e l i e f , t h e s e u n i l i n e a r i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s o f h i s t o r y

predated t h e Marxism of t h e Second I n t e r n a t i o n a l and l i n g e r t o

t h e present- long a f t e r de -S ta l in iza t ion and t h e c o l l a p s e of

' a c t u a l l y e x i s t i n g Commwiismi.

More than any o t h e r concept i n Marxist theory , t h e AMP

provides concre te evidence t h a t Marx, and Engels meant t h e i r

theory of h i s t o r y t o be i n t e r p r e t e d i n a m u l t i l i n e a r fashion, i n

a manner t h a t helped shed l i g h t on t h e v a s t d i f f e r e n c e s and

d i v e r s i t i e s i n t h e h i s t o r i e s of t h e c u l t u r e s , n a t i o n s and s o c i a l

formations of which h i s t o r i c a l mater ia l i sm sought t o a s s i s t i n

both analyzing and changing. Brendan OrLeary observed t h a t

" h i s t o r i c a l material isrn is damned i f it r e t a i n s t h e A s i a t i c Mode

of Production, and damned if it doesn' t ."' By this he meant that an acceptance of the theoretical validity of the AMP destroys

any unilinear interpretation of historical materialism, just as

the attempt to retain a unilinear understanding of the theory

raust also necessarily require abandoning the AMP yet again.

However, the evidence presented in this thesis will corroborate

the informed belief that historical materialism will be far

better off with the AMP than without it.

In his influential Marxism and ~hilosophy~, Karl Korsch

posed the question of whether or not the Marxism of his era

(1923) had degenerated into ideology, or, whether the link

between theory and practice survived (he argued that this link

had been broken). To the extent that unilinear models of human

history bear no relation to the world they profess to describe,

the link between historical materialism and its object was

likewise severed. Unilinear interpretations of historical

materialism clearly played an ideological function that both

hindered and (to a certain degree) aided in the growth and

development of the international Communist movement in the 2oth

century. On the one hand, unilinear interpretations led to the

deformation of revolutionary practice and helped justify the

Stalinist monstrosity which the USSR became, yet at the very

' Brendan OrLeary, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Oriental Despotism, Kistorical Materialism and Indian History. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwel l Ltd., 1989), p. 152

Ka11 Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy. [London: New Left Books, 1970) , pp. 29-85

same time, pushed untold numbers of people into the defense of

this same 'bulwark against Capitalist Imperialism*.

The ideological nature of historical materialism in its

unilinear form is one problem confronting those who would like

to see Marxism and, more particularly, historical rnaterialisrn,

regain a measure of its validity as an analytical tool and also-

and more importantly-its function as a guide for revolutionary

action in today's world. Sartre once called Marxism, "the

untranscendable philosophy of Our time". Ironically, it is the

ideological notion of unilinear history which has proven largely

untranscendable for Marxists. Ridding Marxism of this

ideological deformation would make it possible to demonstrate

that, just as there was more than one historical route which

ultimately led to the creation and development of the capitalist

universe, there will be other paths (other than bureaucxatic

Communism) that will allow humanity to transcend it.

Chapter 1, "The Controversial Nature of the Asiatic Mode

of Production", introduces and discusses some of the reasons why

the AMP is so controversial among Marxists, and non-Marxists.

Some of the political and theoretical reasons for the eventual

suppression of the concept, both within the USSR and in the

International Communist Movement are outlined. The Second

Chinese revolution of 1926-27 is used as a historical case study

in order to outline some of the disastrous implications which

resulted from the acceptance of a unilinear interpretation of

historical materialism. Lastly, the notion that the AMP

necessarily implied a stagnant Asia contrasted to the dynamic

west (certainly one of the most controversial characteristics of

the AMP) is examined and criticized. A careful analysis of Marx

and Engels' writings on this topic show that both authors felt

that an Asiatic transition to a 'highert mode of production was

possible-without an external Imperialist push.

Chapter 2, 'The Origins of the Asiatic Mode of Production

in the Thought of Marx and Engels", outlines in detail the

lengthy, and comprehensive development of the concept in the

works of both authors. The evidence presented here dispels the

idea that concepts such as 'oriental despotismt and the AMP were

quickly abandoned by both authors as their understanding of Asia

and the pre-capitalist world increased. As well, the basic

constitutive characteristics of the AMP are outlined and

elaborated upon. The importance of each of these characteristics

to the essential definition of what constitutes an example of an

AMP is carefully examined. In particular, the centrality of the

absence of private property in land to Marx's definition of the

AMP, as well as the issue of the necessity of large-scale public

works in order for a state to qualify as an example of the AMP,

are both discussed in this chapter. The features which led to

the stolidity of the AMP and the delayed development (as opposed

to stagnation) of Asia relative to Europe are also outlined.

Finally, the interna1 and external factors which eventually led

to the dissolution of this particular mode of production are

surveyed.

Chapter 3, "The Place of the Asiatic Mode of Production

Within Historical Matesialisrn", begins with an discussion of the

dialectical tension that exists between what is commonly

referred to as the 'two motors' of historical materialism. In

one version, the stress is placed on subjective factors and

class consciousness as the central determinants of historical

change. In the second, emphasis is placed on objective factors,

most commonly, the unceasing growth of productive forces and the

eventual conflict that arises between these and the existing

relations of production, which lead to a revolutionary

transformation of society. This chapter demonstrates how both

authors asserted the dialectical interaction between the

subjective and objective determinants of historical change and

how they subscribed to a more open-ended and non-teleological

interpretation of historical change. A close reading and

interpretation of the central passage from the Preface to the

Critique of Political Economy is then undertaken. This passage,

which is Marx's most well-known description of the outlines of

historical materialism, also includes his only known reference

to the AMP by name. Various unilinear interpretations of this

passage are then discussed in detail. It is argued that these

interpretations are invalidated by the 'problematicl presence of

the AMP. Finally, the validity and strengths of multilinear

interpretations of historical materialism are assessed and

evaluated.

The Conclusion summarizes the main issues and arguments

raised in this thesis. As well, the continued importance of

class struggle is reiterated. The open-ended nature of the

historical process emphasizes the point that the building of a

socialist future will be a consciously planned endeavor which

will require a constant and permanent striving for a better

world.

Chapter One: The Controvexsial Nature of the Asiatic Mo& of Pxoduction

Marx and Engels themselves can never be taken simply at their word: the errors of their writings on the past should not be evaded or ignored, but identified and criticized. To do so is not to depart from historical materialism, but to re join it. ' The Asiatic mode of Production (AMP) is quite possibly the

most controversial concept in the history of Marxism. Opponents

of the AMP have tended to denigrate its usefulness for both

Marxism and its theory of history, historical materialism--or

even deny its very existence. Its supporters have fought

endlessly, from the very first debates over the feudal or 'semi-

asiatic' nature of ~ussia~ to the reeent revival of interest in

pre-capitalist economic formations, over how best to understand

and deploy this concept within historical materialism. The AMP

has been declared 'deadt, even non-existent, by a whole range of

Marxist, non-Marxist as well as anti-Marxist writers far too

' Perry Anderson, Passages From Antiquity to Feudalism. (London: Verso, l988), p.9

Marian Sawer noted that by 1906, "The Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin, were already committed to the view that Russian history conformed to the five-stage schema of development Marx and Engels had extrapolated £rom the history of Western Europe. Hence the Bolsheviks drew the conclusion that in Russia feudal vestiges were the main enemy, and nationalisation was the means of eliminating these one and for all. The Mensheviks.-were much more inclined to view Russia in terms of its particularistic historical heritage, rather than in terms of universalist sociological categories ... Of the Menshevi ks , it was Plekhanov who was responsible for legitimating the concept of alternative foms of historical development via the discovery of Marx's concept of Asiatic society." Marian Sawer, "The Politics of Historiography: Russian Socialism and The Question of the Asiatic Mode of Production 1906-1931." Critique 10-11 (Winter-Spring, 1918-791, pp. 15-16

many times to completely outline in this w0rk.j One author has

even declared that "The concept of an Asiatic mode of production

(AMP) is the bastard child of historical materiali~rn."~ On the

other hand, there are those who argue for the centrality of the

AMP in Marxist theory, "who hold the view expressed by (Ferenc)

Tokei, the Hungarian sinologist, that 'the views [of Marx] on

the Asiatic mode of production are an essential part of his work

as a whole, and without them--given the scientific caution with

which he established essential correlations--it is unthinkable

that Capital would have ever been writtent ."= There are several reasons for the controversial nature of

the AMP. In the first place, its position in the thought of Marx

and Engels appears-at first glance-to be extremely tenuous, even

ephemeral. Shlomo Avineri argued that one of the reasons for

this is that 'most of what Marx had to Say about the non-

European world has not been said in his principal theoretical

' Malcolm Caldwell, i n h i s Foreword t o Umberto Melo t t i r s Marx and the Third World was moved declare t h a t "That awkward appendage t o the corpus of Marxism-The As ia t i c mode of production-has been l a i d t o r e s t with even g rea t e r frequency than the general body of which it forms an apparently casual member." (p. v i i ) There a r e many examples of attempts t o eliminate t he AMP £rom Marxism t o choose from. In t h e i r Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production, Barry Hindess and Paul H i r s t reach the conclusion t h a t it is not "possible t o construct a concept of t he AMP ... which corresponds t o the general de f in i t i on of mode of production i n h i s t o r i c a l materialism and which is d i s t i n c t from any o ther mode of production." (p. 179) In other words, the AMP does not e x i s t as a concept within h i s t o r i c a l materialism.

Brendan O'Leary, The As ia t i c Mode of Production: Or ien ta l Despotism, His tor ica l Materialism and Indian History. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 19891, p.1

writings, but is scattered in numerous newspaper articles and in

his c~rrespondence."~ And yet the concept of the AMP is present,

from 1853 onwards, as a consistent subtext to Marxts discussions

of both the 'forms which precede capitalist productiont and of

the economic pre-conditions which are historically necessary for

the eventual dominance of capitalist production relations, both

in the Grundrisse as well as in the four volumes of Capital (in

other words, his so-called 'maturer and fully developed works) .

Despite this, Marx himself mentioned the AMP by name only once-

in the following oft-cited passage in the Preface to &

Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy: 'In broad

outlines Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of

production can be designated as progressive epochs in the

economic formation of society."' Avineri notes that this is the

only known instance "in which Marx explicitly relates the socio-

economic conditions of the non-European world to his general

philosophy of history."' Furthermore, "only with (this work) ... did

Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), p. 49

M.C. Howard and J . E . King, ed i tors , The Economics of Marx: Selected Readings of Exposition and C r i t i c i s m . (New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 1976) , p. 235

' Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), p. 183; Needless t o Say, the passage i n question has been subjected t o endiess exeget ical ana lys is by proponents of both uni l inear as well a s mult i l inear i n t e rp re t a t ions of h i s to r i ca l materialism. The au t l i ne of t h i s debate will be examined and discussed i n d e t a i l i n Chapter 3.

a M.C. Howard and J.E. King, editors, The Economics of Marx: Selected Readings of Exposition and Criticism. (New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 1976), p. 237

Marx inven t t h e term 'As ia t i c mode of p roduc t ionr . Having

announced it t o t h e world he subsequently never used t h e term

p u b l i c l y a g a i ~ ~ . " ~ Some au thors have even claimed t h a t Marx

abandoned t h e concept a s he l ea rned more about Asia and o t h e r

non-cap i t a l i s t s o c i a l formation^.'^ Years l a t e r , Engels added t o

t h e controversy over t h e legi t imacy of t h e concept by omit t ing

any i m p l i c i t o r e x p l i c i t r e fe rence t o it i n h i s The Or ig in of

t h e Family, P r i v a t e Property, and t h e S t a t e , d e s p i t e t h e f a c t

t h a t j u s t 6 years e a r l i e r , he had acknowledged and discussed t h e

ex i s t ence of t h e AMP, without a c t u a l l y mentioning it by name, i n

~ n t i - ~ u h r i n g . " Nonetheless, it is worth r e i t e r a t i n g once more

Brendan O'Leary, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Oriental Despotism, Historical Materialism and Indian History. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989), p. 104

'O This is the view advanced by Stephen Dunn, who points out that "the hypothesis of the Asiatic mode of production as a 'full menber' of the sequence of social orders is not characteristic of mature Marxian thought; it was gradually abandoned by Marx under the impact of later and more accurate data, and is not found as such either in Anti- Duhrinq or in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State." Stephen Dunn, The Fa11 and Rise of the Asiatic Mode of Production, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982), pp, 85-86; On the other hand, Melotti States that "the theory that Marx abandoned the concept after reading Morgan, the American anthropologist, is not tenable, not only because Marx and Engels saw Morgan's findings as a confirmation rather than a refutation of their concept of historical development, but also because many passages still presupposing such a concept as a necessary frame of reference occur in Volume III of Capital, published by Engels in 1894, after Marx's death." Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., l977), p. Il

'' Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism. (New York: Yale University Press, 19571, pp. 382-86; see also Ernest Mandel, The Formation of the Economic ~houqht of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 19711 , pp. 116-17; Melotti has pointed out that although there is no reference to the AMP in The Origin of the Family, Engels did make explicit use of the concept in sereral letters he wrote while preparing this work, and also afterwards. Umberto Melotti, Marx and

that even if Marx and Engels had indeed meant to \abandonr the

AMP-or any other Marxist concept, for that matter-there is

nothing at al1 preventing future generations of Marxists from

once more resuming research in these neglected areas of

knowledge, given the availability o f new findings and

discoveries that might not have been accessible to Marx and

Engels in their tirne.'' Despite the uncertainty, Ernest Mandel

has noted that "it sems well established that Marx held to the

the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), p. 11; The i s sue of whether o r not Engels 'abandonedr the AMP l a t e r i n h i s l i f e has been debated s ince the beginnings of Marxism i t s e l f . This question ac tua l ly f a l l s within the much more broader discussion of whether Engels 'deviatedl from the thinking of Marx l a t e r i n h i s l i f e (i.e., a f t e r t he death of Marx i n 1883). The main argument most o f t en used by the proponents of t h e 'abandonmentr t h e s i s is the f a c t t h a t Engels never again mentioned the term a f t e r the death of Marx. Hal Draper argued qu i t e convincingly t ha t t h i s apparent 'omissionr on the pa r t of Engels was a c t u a l l y a r e s u l t of the pa r t i cu l a r i n t e l l e c t u a l d iv i s ion of labour upon which the two authors came t o base t h e i r l i f e long col laborat ion upon, and not due t o any conscious attempt on the pa r t of Engels t o 'abandon' t he AMP. Hal Drapes, Karl Marxrs Theory of Revolution Volume 1: S t a t e and Bureaucracy. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), pp. 657-660; Maurice Godelier concurs with Draper's assessment, noting t h a t *A more de t a i l ed and chronological ana lys i s of Marx's and Engelst correspondence has brought ou t c l e a r l y t h e f ac t t h a t ne i ther of them had r e j ec t ed the ideas e laborated between 1853 and 1877 concerning t h e exis tence of 'despotic' forms of t h e S t a t e constructed i n Asia, Russia o r elsewhere on t h e bas i s of e a r l i e r ag r i cu l tu ra l communities." David Seddon, ed., Relations of Production: Marxist Approaches t o Economic Anthropology. (London: Frank Cass and Company, Ltd., 1978), p. 210

l2 This is a point emphasized by Derek Sayer, who argued t h a t Marx was w i l l i ng t o "modify and even abandon, t h e supposed general theory of h i s to ry conventionally ascr ibed t o him, i n t he l i g h t of f r e s h empirical evidence." Zaheer Baber, Review of The Violence of Abstraction: The Analytic Foundationç of H i s to r i ca l Materialism, by Derek Sayer and Readings From Karl Mam, ed i t ed by Derek Sayer. I n Journal of Contemporary Asia Vol. 21, No. 2 (1991), p. 247

idea o f an A s i a t i c mode o f production t o t h e end of h i s life."13

As Anne Bailey and Josep Llobera pointed out ,

Marx's development of t h e concept of a s p e c i f i c s o c i a l t o t a l i t y , t h e A s i a t i c mode of production, spanned a pe r iod o f t h i r t y years , beginning wi th h i s newspaper articles o f t h e 18509, extending through h i s c r i t i q u e s of p o l i t i c a l economy, and culminating i n h i s correspondence and e thno log ica l r e sea rch of t h e last years o f h i s l i f e . I n c e r t a i n w r i t i n g s , p a r t i c u l a r elements of t h i s to ta l i ty -p roper ty , t h e d i v i s i o n of labour , su rp lus appropr ia t ion , exchange, and commodity production--are t r e a t e d i n d e t a i l . However, Marx never achieved a systernatic expos i t ion of h i s theory of t h e AMp.14

That Marx was never a b l e t o a r r i v e a t a comprehensive and

d e f i n i t i v e development of h i s idea of t h e AMP i s another reason

f o r t h e controvervy surrounding the concept. Cer ta in authors

have argued t h a t t h e f a c t t h a t Marx ev iden t ly d i d not f i n d i C

important enough t o devote more t i m e t o developing t h e theory of

t h e AMP is s u f f i c i e n t proof t o show t h a t t h e concept was of only

pe r iphera l va lue and s i g n i f i c a n c e t o Marx and thus should be

d iscarded once and f o r a l l . And y e t t h e f a c t remains t h a t Marx

did indeed refer t o t h e idea of an AMP on many occasions i n h i s

lifetime, t h a t he "used Asia a s t h e b a s i s f o r h i s a n a l y s i s of a

fundamentally d i f f e r e n t l i n e o f development from Western

Europer s ." lS Stephen Dunn noted t h a t ' those (au thors ) who were

l3 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx. ( N e w York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), p. 116

'' Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asiat ic Mode of Production: Science and Pol i t ics . (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 19811, p. 2 3

'' Umberto Melotti, Marx and t h e Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), p. 49

n o t prepared e i t h e r ta reject Marx o r t o accep t t h e A s i a t i c mode

of product ion were compelled t o f i n d some way o f d i spos ing of

t h e inconvenient passages i n which Marx appeared t o p o s t u l a t e

such a mode."16 Ernes t Mandel i l l u s t r a t e s one example of j u s t

t h i s s o r t of d i s c u r s i v e t a c t i c which was ernployed by an o?ponent

of the AMP:

V. S t ruve , pope of Sovie t h i s to r iography of t h e Eas t dur ing t h e S t a l i n period, and t h e a u t h o r i t y rnainly respons ib le fox t h e ' re jec t ion ' of t h e A s i a t i c mode of production, found a passage i n t h e w r i t i n g s of Richard Jones i n which t h e l a t t e r af f i rmed t h a t it was t h e non-agr icul tura l popula t ion t h a t c a r r i e d ou t l a rge -sca le p u b l i c works i n Eastern c o u n t r i e s . Bringing t h i s quo ta t ion toge the r wi th two passages i n Volume 1 of C a p i t a l where Marx p o i n t s o u t t h a t t h e occas ional l a rge -sca le cooperat ive e f f o r t made by working people i n p r e - c a p i t a l i s t Soc ie ty was u s u a l l y due t o t h e i r s e r f - l i k e subordinat ion t o t h e r u l i n g power, o r t o t h e i r being s laves , and t h a t t h e g r e a t p u b l i c works of t h e anc ien t East were made p o s s i b l e by ' the concentra t ion i n one hand, o r i n a small number of hands, of t h e revenues on which t h e workers l i v e d f f Struve g a i l y a r r i v e d a t 'proof' t h a t , f o r Marx, t h e A s i a t i c mode of production was a c t u a l l y a p a r t i c u l a r form of t h e slaveowning mode o f production! " Sorne o t h e r au thors have gone f u r t h e r than t h i s , arguing

t h a t Marx was completely mistaken i n h i s a n a l y s i s o f A s i a t i c

s o c i e t i e s . Comenting on t h e idea of an Indian AMP, t h e Indian

h i s t o r i a n D. O. Kosambi dec la red t h a t "what Marx himself said

'' Stephen P. Dunn, The F a l l and Rise of The Asiat ic Mode of Production. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982) , pp. 9-11

" Ernest Mandel, The Formation o f the Economic Thaught of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Pressr 19711, p. 120

about India cannot be taken as it stands ." le The Comintern historian S. Iolk argued, in effect, that Marx 'was not writing

as a Marxist" during those instances when he referred to the

AMP." One Soviet theorist even went so far as to argue that Marx

purposely made statements regarding Asiatic societies which he

knew to be wrong. In other words, this author claimed, Marx

essentially lied about the existence of the AMP! Thus, M. Godes,

a leading Comintern expert on Asiatic society, used circular

reasoning to point out that since "...present day conceptions of

the history of oriental countries (do not) support the existence

of such a specific social fo,mation, Our task is to explain how

and why Marx, at this particular point in the development of his

theory ... expressed opinions on the social order of the Orient,

which have not always proven truc.'"' In any case, a definite and

comprehensive elucidation of the concept by Marx or Engels would

have gone a long way towards preventing many misunderstandings,

misinterpretations or even outright falsifications such as

Struvets. Furthemore, it is apparent that it is the incomplete

and unfinished state of the AMP in Marx and Engelst writings

which provides an easy opening for the expression of many such

la Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations. ( E r i c J. Hobsbawm, Edi tor) . (New York: In te rna t iona l Publishers, 1964 ) p. 61

'' Stephen P. Dunn, The F a l l and Rise of The Asia t ic Mode of Production. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, l982), p. I l

Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The As ia t i c Mode of Production: Science and Po l i t i c s . (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 19E11, p. 102-103

statements ("interpretations of what Marx really said") by both

the proponents, as well as opponents, of the concept.

There are two interrelated reasons why the unfinished and

unsystematic state of the AMP in the thought of Marx and Engels

is not a very compelling argument against its existence. In the

first place, it is common knowledge that Marx's writings and

research were never even brought close to completion. Even

Capital, his most comprehensive analysis and critique of

capitalist political economy, was only partly ~om~leted.~' There

are a whole range of concepts, theories, even whole areas of

knowledge which Marx never found time to write about or comment

on.22 Many of these 8omissions* concerned subjects that were to

prove to be of the most crucial importance to the international

'' Marx himself only lived to see the publication, in 1867, of the first volume of Capital. Engels edited and published the second and third volumes, in 1885 and 1894 respectively, while Karl Kautsky edited and published the fourth book, itself eventually comprising three volumes, as Theories of Surplus Value in 1905 to 1910-fully 22 years after the death of Marx. Despite its massive size, the four volumes of Capital comprise only one completed portion of what Marx had envisioned, in the Grundrisse, to be a six part study on the economics of the capitalist mode of production.

*' Some subjects Marx was never able to comment upon or develop include: an explanation the differences between Hegel's and his own dialectics, a theory of the nature of the state in various social formations and definite levels of historical development, etc. Regarding the former, Marx tantalizingly declared, in a letter to Engels on January 14, 1858, that "if there should ever be time for such a work again, 1 should greatly like to make accessinle to the ordinary human intelligence, in two or three printer's sheets, what is r a t i o n a l in the method which Hegel discovered but at the same time enveloped in mysticism-" (Marx's italics) . Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Selected Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-1895, (New York: International Publishers, 1942), p. 102; The fact that he never managed to carry out this project had the profoundest consequences for the development of Marxism. One could go so far as to argue that had Marx carried out this clarification, we

conununist movement in the 20th c e n t ~ r ~ . ~ ~ To argue on this basis

against the relevance of the AMP is problematic, since the same

argument could be used against, Say, the relevance of developing

a general theory of the capitalist state within particular

economic formations (an area of research certainly under-

theorized in Marx's lifetime), or some other issue of paramount

importance to revolutionary Marxism today.

The second, and more important, reason why the AMP should

be retained-despite the paucity of Marx's comments upon it-is

that Marx's primary interest lay not in the AMP itself, or any

other pre-capitalist or non-capitalist economic formation, for

that matter. As Brendan OrLeary observed, Marx and Engels'

"concern with Asiatic societies stemmed from their interest in

the applicability of historical materialism to the analysis of

pre-capitalist societies, an interest which was itself almost

wholly driven by their desire to demonstrate the uniqueness and

genesis of ~apitalism."~~ More specifically, Marx's main concern

might never have had 'Althusserianismr, arnong other so-called 'theoretical detours'.

l3 As we shall see, theoretical discussions concerning the AMP itself assumed a tremendous, and ill-fated urgency as well as huaediate practical relevance during the debate over the nature of China (feudal, capitalist or asiatic?) during the second Chinese Revolution of 1926-27,

*' Brendan Or Leary, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Oriental Despotism, Historical Materialism and Indian History. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd. , 1989), p. 81; Eric Hobsbawm makes the same point in his introduction to Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations: "Marx concentrated h i s energies on the study of capitalism, and he dealt with the rest of history in varying degrees of detail, but mainly in so far as it bore on the origins and development of capitalism." Karl Marx, Pre-

was to observe "the appearance in preceding formations of the

conditions which make possible the emergence of a capitalist

society ... (conditions) which, converging in a given place

(Europe), in a given time (the sixteenth century), in a given

juncture, bring forth capitalist ~ociety."~~ William Shaw pointed

out that

Marx approached earlier social formations from the vantage point of capitalism, and was chiefly concerned to contrast capitalism's defining traits with those of previous forrns. Marx also examined those bygone economic types to locate the manner in which capitalism's particular elements were born. This demonstration of capitalism's historical specificity implied for Marx the other half of its temporal finitude: if capitalism is a system which has not always existed, then there is no reason to think it will las t f orever. 26

In short, an understanding of how capitalism was created

by a definite class of people might eventually lead al1 of

humanity (or, at least, a sufficient majority thereof) to an

understanding of how to finally bring it to an end. The guiding

thread of Marx's examination of the Asiatic mode of production

and pre-capitalist societies in general was exactly the same as

that of his more thorough investigations into capitalist

political economy and, ultimately, the same guiding thread which

informed his entire lifefs work. For Marx, these were al1

Capitalist Economic Formations. (Eric J. Hobsbawm, Editor) . (New York: International Publishers, 1964) p. 20

" Ernest Mandel, The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), p. 132

26 William 8 . Shaw, Marx's Theory of History. (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1978), p. 114

equally important and related parts of his attempt to construct

a revolutionary critique of bourgeois society and the mode of

production this society was founded upon, a revolutionizing

critique that would hopefully contribute to the establishment of

a classless society. The analysis and understanding of al1 other

modes of production was not considered unimportant. Rather, it

played a secondary and supporting role to this primary, lifelong

objective.

Perhaps the most important reason for the controversy

surrounding the AMP is that its central and defining

characteristics contravene 'orthodox' Marxist theory and

confront it with a radically different interpretation of history

and historical materialism. Simply put, the concept of the AMP

presents a direct challenge to any unilinear reading or

interpretation of historical materiali~rn.~~ In addition, the

allegedly stagnant, unchanging and ahistorical nature of

societies characterized by the AMP has long been a source of

great controversy within Marxism. As well, the idea that a

bureaucratic and highly centralized 'despoticr state apparatus

can atrain complete domination over 'civil societyl (indeed,

prevent any tentative first attempts at the creation of such a

civil society) as well as economic control of al1 land in a

" Avineri s t a t e d t h a t "Marx's concept of t h e A s i a t i c mode o f production thus poses a ser ious challenge t o t h e assumption t h a t Marx developed a philosophy of h i s to ry universal i n its appl icabi l i ty ." M.C. Howard and J.E. King, ed i tors , The Economics of Marx: Selected Readings of Exposition and Criticisut. (New York: Penguin Books L td . , 197 6) , p. 243

society marked by the absence of private property in land, has

allowed both proponents as well as opponents of the AMP to

validate and attack the widest imaginable array of theoretical

and ideological positions throughout the history of the

development of Marxism. In short, the AMP became a powerful

polemical weapon in the 2oLh century. This fact, more than any

intrinsic theoretical deficiencies it may have had, ultimately

helped seal its fate.28

The concept of the AMP has often been used to attack the

bureaucracies that arose within so-called 'actually existing

socialist societiest such as the USSR or China on the gxounds

that these bureaucracies and the workerst states they presided

over were nothing more than 2oth century versions of the despotic

state structures of the AMP." Hal Draper noted that "...theories

of Oriental despotism tend to be-and to be regarded as-predated

judgments on the type of society developed in Stalinrs ~ussia."'~

More generally, the term has been misused by authors, such as

28 Stephen Dunn observed t h a t "It has been suggested by a t l e a s t one Western scholar ( t he l a t e Karl A. Wit t fogel) , and by some of the pa r t i c ipan t s i n t he o r ig ina l Soviet debate which l e d t o the abandonment of the concept, t h a t t h e Asia t i c mode of production was removed from the o f f i c i a l Soviet-Marxist t heo re t i ca l a rsena l fo r p o l i t i c a l reasons." Stephen P. Dunn, The F a l l and Rise of The Asia t ic Mode of Production. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 19821, p. 4

29 This was t he cen t r a l argument advanced b y t h e ex-Marxist Wittfogel i n h i s 1957 work Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. The debates concerning t h e relevance of t he concept of Oriental Despotism t o an ana lys i s of Chinars bureaucratized s t a t e s t r u c t u r e continue t o t h i s day. See t h e co l l ec t i on of essays i n Timothy Brook's The As ia t i c Mode of Production i n China.

'O Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume 1: S t a t e and Bureaucracy. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977)' p. 629

Karl Wit t fogel , " i n o rder t o denounce any p a s t , p r e s e n t o r

f u t u r e goverment they may dis l ike o u t s i d e Western ~ u r o ~ e . " ~ '

Although Wit t fogel had t h e Sovie t Union i n mind, i n t h e

af termath of t h e Sino-Soviet s p l i t t h e s e polemics came t o be

d i r e c t e d more and more a g a i n s t Maors China. Thus, Roger ~ a r a u d ~ ~ ~

denounced Mao Tze-Dong and t h e 'erroneousl economic and

p o l i t i c a l p o l i c i e s he had adopted i n China, c a l l i n g them

\ seque l s r of t h e A s i a t i c mode of production. Helene Carrere

d'Encausse and S t u a r t Schram commented t h a t '...it i s impossible

t o deny t h e anti-Chinese animus of many of those who r e f e r t o

t h e concept of t h e Asiatic mode of production t ~ d a y . " ~ ~

Discussion of t h e a p p l i c a b i l i t y of t h e theory o f t h e AMP

t o China had a l r e a d y taken place s e v e r a l decades be fore t h e

Sino-Soviet s p l i t , though i n a very d i f f e r e n t p o l i t i c a l and

h i s t o r i c a l conjuncture. China had been t h e s u b j e c t of intense

p o l i t i c a l and t h e o r e t i c a l d i scuss ion wi th in t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l

communist movement (i.e., t h e Comintern) i n t h e 1920rs, dur ing

t h e pe r iod o f i t s second revo lu t ion i n 1926-27. The debate

cen te red around t h e ques t ion o f what was t h e c o r r e c t p o l i c y t h e

Comintern had t o adopt i n r e l a t i o n t o t h a t r evo lu t ion .

'' Ervand Abrahamian, 'European Feudalism and Middle Eastern Despotisms." Science and Society Vol. 39, No. 2 (Summer, 19751, p. 155

32 Garaudy was a member of the Political Bureau of the Stalinized French Communist Party u n t i l 1968, when he was expelled due to his stance regarding the May Student Uprising.

Unfortunately, as Mandel pointed out, it was precisely the fact

that "...the strategic and tactical problems of this revolution

obtruded that put an end to scientific discussion of the Asiatic

mode of production ." 34

The discussion essentially revolved around one key issue:

Was the revolutionary process that was currently unfolding in

China anti-feudal--and therefore, bourgeois--in nature, or, on

the other hand, was this revolutionary process anti-capitalist--

and therefore, socialist--in nature? The Stalinist tendency

naturally defended the position that the revolution was anti-

feudal, in keeping with its mechanical and stagist conception of

the revolutionary process in general as well as its consequent

insistence upon the universal applicability of its popular

frontist revolutionary strategy based on the alliance (or bloc)

of the four classes . 3 5 Quite revealingly, one Soviet author noted

that

The theory of the Asiatic mode of production, which emphasizes the exclusive specificities of oriental history, can easily play into the hands of nationalist elements in the Orient. They could hide under the veil of this exclusive nature and insist that the teachings of Marx and Lenin are inapplicable to the Orient. At the same the, this theory of

33 Helene Carrere d'Encausse and S tua r t R. Schram, Marxism and Asia: An Introduction with Readings. (London: The Penguin Press, 19691 pp. 93- 94

34 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of the Economic Thouqht of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), pp. 117-118

35 S t a l i n confirmed this in t e rp re t a t ion i n Dia lec t ica l and R i s to r i ca l Materialism, observing t h a t " in China a semi-feudal sysrem st i l l prevails-" , (p. 27 )

exclusivity cornpletely satisfies imperialism, since it is associated with the view that oriental society was stagnant and therefore that European capitalisrn played a messianic role. 36

Since the main political function of the Stalinized

Comintern was the subordination of the world revolutionary

movement to the political and military requirements of Moscow,

i.e., to the defense of the USSR and the building of Socialism

in One Country, a 'universally valid' mode1 of history and the

revolutionary process would work particularly well in keeping

al1 other nations in check and preventing any Trotskyist-

inspired skipping of historical stages straight into socialism.

In short, every nation had to play by the same Moscow-dictated

set of historical rules. Incidentally, it should also be pointed

out that this statement is a striking example of the almost

purely instrumental role that theory played within the

Stalinized Comintern. A theory was not to be validated in terms

of its relationship to the 'truthr, the 'factst or the 'real

worldt (however one chooses to define or understand these

concepts). Rather, a theory was judged in terms of the possible

political consequences, ideological service or polemical

advantages it could potentially generate with its employment and

application. The fact that 'nationalistsr and imperialists may

find some ideological use for the concept of the AMP overrode

any possible truth or theoretical accuracy the theory might have

possessed in the first place. However, this should not surprise

anyone because by this point in the debate, as Mandel pointed

out, al1 questions concerning theoretical or scientific accuracy

were reduced 'to a 'functional' level, in connection with the

factional struggles within the C~rninterm.''~~

Hal Draper pointed out the real and more pressing reason

for the Comintern's intransigence on the issue of the

universality of its five-stage mode1 of revolution:

the political motivation ... was not hidden: it was specifically directed against the menace of 'Trotskyism '... What was required from scholars was a theory justifying Stalinrs popular-front type of policy, which in turn involved the n~tian that the enemy in China was the 'remnants of feudalism' and imperialism-at any rate, precapitalist social forces farniliar to European political thought . '' In other words, the Chinese 'realityf had to be forced to

conform with the Western inspired theoretical formulation of

revolution in stages, instead of vice versa. Furthemore, it did

not help the cause of the defenders of the AMP that "...the

Marxian idea of Asian society characterized by an exploiting

bureacratic (sic} class even though there was no private

property seemed to corne dangerously close to Trotsky's analysis

'' Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 19813, p. 104

" Ernest Mandel, The Formation of the Economic Thought of K a s 1 Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 19711, p. 118

Hal Draper, Kari Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), p. 629

of Soviet ~ociety."'~ Against this Stalinist conception, the

Trotskyist tendency defended the anti-capitalist nature of the

Chinese revolution and the necessity of abandoning the outdated

and obsolete model of revolution in stages .40 They pressed for

the acceptance of a permanentist, or socialist, perspective with

regards to the revolutionary tasks to be carried out by the

Chinese proletariat in this rev~lution.~' Now it should be

stressed that the Trotskyist analysis of the Chinese revolution

l9 Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), p. 162

It need not be reiterated that the Stalinist model of revolution in stages was based on the notion that the bourgeoisie (or at least a substantial faction of it) could potentially still play a progressive role in the historical process, given the unfinished and incomplete nature of its own revolution. George Lukacs (who was certainly never a Trotskyist, whatever his actual political affiliations really were) nad pointed out the absurdity of this proposition in 1924: "The undeniable historical fact that the class which led or was the beneficiary of the great bourgeois revolutions of the past becornes objectively counter-revolutionary does not mean that those objective problems on which its revolution turned have found their social solutions-that those strata of society who were vitally interested in the revolutionary solution of these problems have been satisfied. On the contrary, the bourgeoisie's recourse to counter-revolution indicates not only its hostility towards the proletariat, but at the same time the renunciation of its own revolutionary traditions. It abandons the inheritance of its revolutionary past to the proletaria t. From now on the proletariat is the only class capable of taking the bourgeois revolution to its logical conclusion. In other words, the remaining relevant demands of the bourgeois revolution can only be realized within the framework of the proletarian revolution, and the consistent realization of these demands necessarily leads to a proletarian revolution. Thus, the proletarian revolution now means at one and the same time the realization and the supersession of the bourgeois revolution." (Italics in the original.) Georg Lukacs, Lenin: A Study on the Unity of His Thought, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1971), p. 49

" mat this 'permanentist' perspective (in other words, Permanent Revolution) entailed in practice was the combination of bath bourgeois as well as socialist tasks into one single, continuous and therefore permanent, process. This entire revolutionary process was ta be

differed greatly in a number of critical aspects from the

analysis presented by the supporters of a Chinese AMP.

Ultimately, these diffexences did not Save the AMP from official

condemnation, since "...to admit that an Asiatic mode of

production existed in China was equivalent to underestimating

the 'anti-feudal tasks' of the Chinese rev~lution."~~ In other

words, accepting the AMP meant disagreeing with the Stalinist

analysis. It was this common, though far from united, opposition

to the Stalinist tendency presented by both the Trotskyists and

the AMP supporters which eventually led to the elimination of

both schools of thought. Evgenii Yolk, a leading Soviet theorist

on Asia, concluded that

,.the Trotskyists' conceptions, which emphasized the existence of commercial capitalism in China and stressed the anti-capitalist nature of the current revolution, differed from those of the supporters of the Asiatic mode of production but that nevertheless the political consequences of the two conceptions were identical since they implied rejection of the anti-feudal (bourgeois-democratic) nature of the present stage of the Chinese revulutionary movement . 43

Although this debate certainly seemed rather arid and

strictly academic on the surface, it involved very important,

and concrete, practical issues. Central among these were the

-- -~

carried out under t h e ine luc tab le leadership of t h e Chinese pro le t a r i a t .

42 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of the Econonic Thoughts of Karl Marx. [New York: Monthly Reoiew Press, 1971), p. 118

43 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of the Economic Thought of Kari Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 19711, p. 118; Once again, note t h e s t r e s s placed on the possible ' po l i t i ca l consequences* of the theory

question of the Communist Party of China's relationship to the

national bourgeoisie (represented by the Kuomintang, or KMT) as

well as the secondary issue of a strategic alliance, and the

nature and substance of this alliance, of the proletariat with

the peasantry.

The main practical consequence of the Stalinist

perspective meant the need for the Comintern and the Communist

Party of China to throw its support behind the bourgeois-

nationalist KMT in its fight against the feudal warlords which

still dominated much of China. The main practical consequence of

the Trotskyist perspective meant the need for the CPC to begin

arming the workers in preparation for an anti-capitalist

revolution against the KMT under the guidance and leadership of

the CPC. Needless to say, the Stalinist tendency came to win the

day and what happened next is well documented: the adoption of

the Cominternrs stagist conception and its strategy of the bloc

of four classes under the leadership of the KMT; the Cominternfs

demand that the CPC should subordinate itself to the KMT and 'do

the coolie service for the KMTf; Chiang Kai-Shek quickly

achieving reconciliation with the 'left' elements of the KMT as

well as the feudal warlords; the subsequent betrayal and large-

scale massacre of Chinese Communist cadres by the KMT's forces

at the first possible opportunity, etc.'4 In hindsight, it is

r a the r than an attempt t o val idate o r invalidate the theory i n r e l a t ion t o speci f ic independent, external c r i t e r i a .

absolutely clear that it was the Comintern's failure to

adequately and correctly address, precisely at the theoretical

level, the issues raised by this seemingly abstract debate which

ultimately led to the disaster and failure of the Second Chinese

~evolution.'~ This debacle would mark the beginning of the end of

the debate on the theoretical status of the AMP, not just in the

Soviet Union but within the international Communist movement as

a whole, the concept "eventually vanishing from the textbooks . "46

In a resolution passed in July 1928, the CPC rejected the

relevance of the concept of the AMP to china .47 Indeed, the

problematical ideological connotations of the AMP would

ultimately lead to its officia1 rejection and fa11 from

recognized Communist orthodoxy in the Leningrad Conference of

February, 1931 . 4 e The supporters of the theory of the AMPI along

with the supporters of the Trotskyist tendency, al1 fell victim

to the Staiinist tendency's increasingly successful attempts to

4 4 Harold R. I saacs , The Tragedy of t h e Chinese Revolution, Second Revised Edi t ion. (New York: Atheneum, 1968), pp. 160-162; s e e a l s o Michael Lowy, The P o l i t i c s o f Combined and Uneven Development: The Theory of Permanent Revolution. (London: Verso, 198 1) , pp. 78-80

4 5 Michael Lowy, The P o l i t i c s of Combined and Uneven Development: The Theory o f Permanent Revolution. (London: Verso, 198 1) , pp . 80-8 1

46 Ernest Mandel, The Formation o f t h e Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 19711, p. 118

Marian Sawer, 'The P o l i t i c s o f Historiography: Russian Socialism & The Quest ion of t h e Asiatic Mode o f Production 1906-1931," C r i t i q u e 10-11 (Winter-Spring, 1978-79), p. 22

'' Stephen P, Dunn, The F a l l and Rise of The A s i a t i c Mode of Production. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982) , pp. 9-11; H a l Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume 1: S t a t e and Bureaucracy. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), p. 629

silence al1 opposition to its mechanistic and stagist theory of

revolutionary strategy. Bailey and Llobera stated that after the

1931 Leningrad Conference 'the major proponents of the AMP ... were

to disappear during the purges of the mid-1930~."~~ Hal Draper

claimed (although without presenting substantial proof) that a

number of supporters of views other than the officially accepted

'anti-feudalt characterization of the Chinese Revolution (in

other words, Trotskyists and supporters of the AMP) "were sent

to their ancestors for instruction on this point."50 It seemed

that the only acceptable, and safe, course was uncritical

obedience and agreement with the \officiallyr mandated Comintern

position. The 1931 Leningrad Conference ultimately resulted in

the declaration of a new party line regarding the AMP. In part,

it declared that "henceforth Marxfs views on the Asiatic mode of

production, if mentioned at all, were to be interpreted to mean

that the Asiatic societies were essentially fe~dal."~' In

practice, this meant that the Comintern theorists were forced ta

pigeonhole the most diverse, disparate and unrelated social

49 Anne M. Bailey and Josep R, Llobera, The As ia t i c Mode of Production: Science and Po l i t i c s . (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981), p. 5 2

Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume 1: S ta t e and Bureaucracy. ( N e w York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), pp. 629-630

51 Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume 1: S ta t e and Bureaucracy. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), p. 629; see a l so Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The As i a t i c Mode of Production: Science and Po l i tics. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981) , p . 52; Umberto Melotti a l so stresses t h i s point, noting t h a t " the tendency t a consider Oriental soc i e t i e s a s an Asiatic var ian t of

- 29 -

formations into the five-stage schema of history, mechanically

searching everywhere and in each society for evidence, however

vague, of a previously existing 'feudal' mode of production in

the histories of these nations.52 This overly simplistic mode1 of

history was eventually codified as Communist dogma in L938 by

Stalin hirnself, in his Dialectical and Historical Materialism:

"Five main types of relations of production are known to

history: primitive communal, slave, feudal, capitalist and

socialist ." 53 The "Reaf firmation of Unilinealism" was now comple ted . 54

Despite this, it would be too simplistic to argue that the

absence of Stalin, and Stalinism, on the world-historical stage

would have necessarily meant the consequent acceptance of the

-

feudalisxdr was established at this conference. Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 19771, p. 9

52 Marian Sawer outlined a characteristically typical attempt by a Bolshevik historian, during a debate at the Fifteenth Congress of the CPSU in 1927, to reduce the AMP to a 'variant' of feudalism: '...by the 'Asiatic' mode of production Marx understood one of the varieties of feudalism; to be specific, that there are here no differences in essence from the usual form of feudalism but that there are secondary differences of a more external kind, in the sphere of the juridical and historical system. This is the way that this question has been understood by us up to now and this is the way that Comrade Lenin understood it." Marian Sawer, "The Politics of Historiography: Russian Socialism and The Question of the Asiatic Mode of Production 1906- 1931." Critique 10-11 (Winter-Spring, 1978-79), p. 23; The theoretical and political problems arising from this mechanically imposed schema will- be discussed further later on.

'' Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism. (New York: International Publishers, 19401, p. 34

54 "The Reaffirmation of Unilinealisdr was the title of a highly polemical essay by M. Godes, one of the Soviet principals in the debate on China and the AMP. Anne M, Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: ~outledge& Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981), pp. 99-105

AMP as well as multilinear interpretations of historical

materialism and progress, The ideological and political

requirements of an almost completely isolated Soviet Union, and

the need to justify its continued existence through the theory

and practice of Socialism in One Country, also played a role in

the disappearance of alternative theories of history, progress

and revolution. As Bailey and Llobera have pointed out,

Blame for the suppression of the concept of the AMP and the implantation of a unilineal evolutionary scheme is frequently assigned to Stalin. The tendency towards a mechanical vulgar materialist conception of Marx's historical materialism certainly pre-dates Stalin. The merging of world history and national histories as a sequence of universal stages is perhaps partly a product of the nationalization of revolution. The assignment of the blame to Stalin only serves to obscure the implicit unilinealism and mechanicism of some of Marxr s previous followers

There is another important objection ta the AMP which has

often been raised over the years by a large number of Marxist

and non-Marxist critics of the concept. Namely, the alleged

stagnation and unchanging stability of Asiatic societies seemed

to offer a validation for colonialism and imperialism in the

regions of the world dominated by the AMP on the grounds that

only the external disintegrating force of colonial conquest and

imperialist economic relations can plant the seeds for the

transition from the most primitive modes of production to

Capitalism. Admittedly, Marx himself was ambiguous on whether or

not societies dominated by the AMP could achieve the transition

to feudalism or capitalism on their own and without external, or

imperialist, intervention. Furthermore, there is only one known

instance where Marx alluded to the possibility of internally

driven changes leading Asian society (China, in this case)

towards a possibly socialist type of de~elo~ment.~~ It seems that

this is a question which Marx never seemed to have definitively

answered one way or the other. However, this was not due to any

theoretical shortcoming on his part. Rather, the actual course

of historical development, the march of history itself, had

prevented the question from ever being properly posed to him in

the first place and had already answered the question for Marx.

Certainly Marx's early dispatches from India were rife

with the idea that British imperialism was a horribly

destructive and tragic undertaking which was 'actuated only by

55 Anne M. Bailey and Science and Po l i t i c s . 5 2

Josep R. Llobera, The As ia t i c Mode of Production: (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981) , p.

s6 The f a c t t h a t t h i s s o l i t a r y reference is del ivered i n a highly i r o n i c context and an almost condescending manner does not help Marx's case. In a discussion of t he possible consequences of an ongoing peasant revol t i n China i n February 1850, Marx observed t h a t "It may w e l l be t h a t Chinese social ism is r e l a t ed t o European social ism j u s t a s Chinese philosophy is r e l a t ed t o Hegelian philosophy. But it is an amusing f a c t t h a t t h e o ldes t and most unshattered Empire on t h i s ea r th has been pushed, i n e igh t years, by t he cot ton b a l 1 of t h e Br i t i sh bourgeois toward t h e br ink of a s o c i a l upheaval t h a t must have most profound consequences f o r c iv i l i z a t i on . When our European reac t ionar ies , on t h e i r next f l i g h t through Asia, w i l l have f i n a l l y reached t h e Chinese wall, t he ga tes t h a t l ead t o t h e seat of primeval reac t ion and conservatismwho knows, perhaps they w i l l read t h e following in sc r ip t i on on t h e Wall: Republique Chinoise-Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite!" Quoted by Avineri i n M.C. Roward and J .E . King, ed i to r s , The Economics of ~ a r x : Selected Readings of Exposition and C r i t i c i s m . [New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 1976), p. 251

the vilest inter est^."^' But Marx also seemingly reiterated many

times in these very same texts that as brutal and devastating

British imperial conquest was in practice, it was nevertheless

an absolutely necessary stage in the historical development or

progress of humanity as a whole. In "The British Rule in India"

Marx famously asked whether or not "..mankind (can) fulfil its

destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of

Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she

was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that

revoluti~n."~~ And again in "The Future Results of the British

Rule in India", Marx reiterated the same theme regarding the

dialectical nature of imperialist intervention when he declared

that "England has to fulfil a double mission in India: one

destructive, the other regenerating-the annihilation of old

Asiatic society, and the laying of the material foundations of

Western society in ~sia.""

Despite these statements, it must be pointed out that the

British colonial conquest of India and the massive penetration

of European industrial capital in China was a process that was

already fully and irrevocably underway at the time Marx and

Engels began their first attempts at a careful and srudied

'' Karl Marx, Surveys From Exile, Political Writings: Volume 2. (London: Penguin Books, 1992) p. 307

Karl Marx, Surveys From Exile, Political Writings: Volume 2. (London: Penguin Books, 1992) p. 307

analysis of Asiatic societie~.~~ In other words, neither author

ever had the opportunity to examine and comment upon the

progressivisrn and historical dynamism (or lack thereof) of an

Asiatic social formation unencumbered by, and beyond the

economic and political thralldom of, a major European colonial

power. In his very first New York Daily Tribune article on India

in June 1853, Marx had already made reference to the fact that

the Indian village system was nearly completely extinct, noting

that "these small stereotype foms of social organism have been

to the greater part dissolved, and are disappearing, not so much

through the brutal interference of the British tax-gatherer and

the British soldier, as to the working of English stem and

English free trade."" Such a study may well have proven that the

interna1 dynamics and contradictions of Asiatic societies would

have led them, on their own, towards progress in a specifically

Marxist sense. It may well also have proven the opposite case:

that imperialisrn and colonialism really were necessary

historical preconditions of 'progresst al1 along. In any case,

this remains an open question, trapped in the realm of

unexaminable and, ultimately, unverifiable historical

possfbility.

59 Karl Marx, Surveys From E x i l e , P o l i t i c a l Writings: Volume 2. (London: Penguin Books, 1992) p. 320

60 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of t h e Economic Thought of Karl Marx. [New York: Monthly Review Press, 19711, p. 127

'' Karl Marx, Surveys £rom Exile: P o l i t i c a l Writings: Volume 2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics, 1992), pp. 305-306

However, a c a r e f u l reading of t h e i r w r i t i n g s on A s i a would

show t h a t Marx, and probably Engels, almost c e r t a i n l y never

be l i eved t h a t Asiatic S t a t e s dominated by t h e AMP were doomed t o

e t e r n a l s t a g n a t i o n i n t h e absence of i m p e r i a l i s t i n t e r v e n t i o n i n

t h e i r economic and p o l i t i c a l a f f a i r s . Mandel has po in ted o u t

t h a t t h e theory o f t h e AMP does not imply t h a t " t h e na t ions of

Asia would no t have been able t o achieve c a p i t a l i s m on t h e i r

own. I t merely exp la ins why Western Europe was ab le , s t a r t i n g i n

t h e s i x t e e n t h century , t o g e t f u r t h e r and f u r t h e r ahead of t h e

rest of t h e ~ o r l d . " ~ ~ Car re re d'Encausse and Schram commented

t h a t "(Marx) was persuaded t h a t t h e Indians , whose human

q u a l i t i e s he p r a i s e s h ighly , were e n t i r e l y capable of p laying a

r o l e i n t h e world and of developing i n t h e i r t u r n a dynamic

c i v i l i z a t i ~ n . . ! ' ~ ~ George Lichtheim observed t h a t Marx, i n a

footnote i n Volume 3 of c a p i t a l g 4 , seemed t o be h i n t i n g t h a t i f

it had n o t been f o r t h e " s t r i n g of f u t i l e and r e a l l y absurd ( i n

p r a c t i c e infamous) economic experiments" c a r r i e d o u t by t h e

62 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), p. 124

63 Helene Carrere d'Encausse and Stuart R. Schram, Marxism and Asia: An Introduction with Readings. (London: The Penguin Press, 1969) p. 9

64 1% I f any nat ion 's his tory, then the h i s to ry of t he English i n India is a s t r i n g of f u t i l e and r e a l l y absurd ( i n p rac t i ce infamous) economic experiments. In Bengal they created a ca r i ca tu re of large- s ca l e English landed e s t a t e s ; i n south-eastern India a car ica ture of small parcel led property; i n t he northwest they d i d a l 1 they could t o t r a n s f o m t h e Indian economic comunity with common ownership of the s o i 1 i n t o a ca r i ca tu re of i t s e l f - " Karl Marx, Capital: A Cri t ique of P o l i t i c a l Economy, Volume 3. Edited by Frederick Engels. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, l W ï } , pp. 333-334

British colonizers in India, the self-sufficient Indian village

systems "might have evolved in a sounder (capitalist?)

directi~n."~~ Maurice Godelier discussed at least two possible

directions arising from an interna1 (as opposed to externally

mediated) disintegration of the econornic structures of the AMP

and the consequent developrnent of a new social formation. One

possibility he mentioned would lead from the AMP "to the slave

mode of production via the ancient mode of production." Godelies

cites (albeit, controversially) the Greek and Roman empires as

examples of this route of historical development. The second

historical possibility he cites "would lead slowly ... from certain forms of the Asiatic mode of production (directly) to certain

forms of Feudalisxn" without an intervening slave stage. He

mentions China, Vietnam, Japan, India and Tibet as corresponding

to this form of historical de~elopment.~~ In Volume 1 of Capital,

Marx himself had made the observation that

A more exact study of the Asiatic, and specifically of the Indian form of communal property would indicate the way in which different foms of spontaneous, primitive communal property give rise to di fferent fonns of its dissolution. Thus the different original types of Roman and Germanic private property can be deduced from the different forms of Indian communal property. 67

- -

65 George Lichtheim, "Marx and t he 'Asiat ic Mode of Production'." i n St . Antonyf s Papers, Number 1 4 . Edited by G.F. Hudson. (London: Chatto and Windus, 1963), p. 97

66 Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asia t ic Mode of Production: Science and Po l i t i c s . (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 19811, p. 268

In other words, the dissolution of the AMP can be effected

by the workings of its own interna1 economic contradictions.

Much like the capitalist mode of production, the AMP possessed

its own 'laws of motionf. Bailey and Llobera observed that Marx

conceived of the AMP "...as having (a) historical dimension, with

a specific dynamic. The AMP (was) not considered stagnant, in

the sense that 'stagnation' is defined in an a priori fashion;

it is pictured as an historically differentiated whole which

never spontaneously evolved into ~apitalisrn."~~ By the tirne Marx

began work on Volume 1 of Capital in the 1860rs, he had become

"less certain that traditional society embodied no positive

factors..bis attitude had become ambi~alent."~~ Unfortunately, the

specific laws of motion of the AMP were never subjected to the

rigorous scrutiny of a thorough analysis using specifically

Marxist concepts and terms-at least in the lifetime of Marx and

Engels.

'' Karl Marx, Capital: A Cr i t ique of P o l i t i c a l Economy, Volume 1. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and t r ans l a t ed by Ben Fowkes. (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), p. 171

Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The As ia t i c Mode of Production: Science and Po l i t i c s . (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981), p. 34

69 George Lichtheim, "Marx and t h e 'Asiatic Mode of Production' ." i n S t . Antony's Papers, Number 14. Edited by G.F. Hudson. (London: Chatto andWindus, 1963), p. 98

'"tephen Dunn dec la res t h a t "any rev iva l of t he concept of t he As ia t ic mode of production a t t he present point i n i n t e l l e c t u a l h i s to ry must depend on da ta and considerations of which Marx and Engels were not aware." Stephen Dunn, The Fall and Rise af t h e As i a t i c Mode of Production. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1 9 8 2 i , p. 86

The debate concerning the evolutionary potential of the

AMP cannot amount to much more than mere conjecture and blind

speculation. It is hardly the crux of the matter. What is at

issue here is the nature of Marx's statements on the British

imperialist role in India and China. These statements cannot be

honestly interpreted as a validation, endorsement or

justification of the historical inevitability and necessity of

colonial conquest, despite the repeated assertions of numerous

authors to the contrary." On the contrary, these dispatches,

writings and articles were nothing more than a series of

extremely well-informed commentaries on the possible political

and economic consequences, and historical outcomes, of a series

of processes that were already unfolding--in reality, largely

completed--when Marx first began writing on Asian affairs.

While it is far from clear whether Marx conceived of

Asiatic societies as being capable of achieving capitalist

development on their own, it is equally clear that Marx felt

that the establishment of a capitalist world-market, i.e., the

extension of capitalist production relations on a truly global

scale, was a necessary precondition for a successful socialist

revolution. Whether this was accomplished by the internal

" Shlomo Avineri, f o r example, S t a t e s t h a t "Since Or ien ta l soc ie ty does not develop in te rna l ly , it cannot evolve toward capi tal ism through t h e d i a l e c t i c s of i n t e rna l change; and s ince Marx postulates the ul t imate v ic tory of socialism on the p r i o r universal izat ion of capitalism, he necessar i ly a r r ives a t the pos i t i on of having t o endorse European colonial expansion as a b r u t a l but necessary s t ep toward t h e v ic tory o f socialisrn." M.C. Howard and J.E. King, edi tors ,

development of t h e i r economic c o n t r a d i c t i o n s o r through e x t e r n a l

fo rce , a l 1 na t ions c h a r a c t e r i z e d by t h e AMP, o r any o t h e r pre-

c a p i t a l i s t mode of production, had t o be compelled '...on p a i n of

e x t i n c t i o n , t o adopt t h e bourgeois mode of production ... t o

in t roduce what ( t h e bourgeo i s ie ) calls c i v i l i z a t i o n i n t o t h e i r

midst, i.e., t o become bourgeois thernselve~." '~ H e stressed t h i s

p o i n t i n a letter t o Engels on October 8, 1858:

The s p e c i f i c t a s k o f bourgeois s o c i e t y i s t h e es tabl ishment of a world market, a t l e a s t i n o u t l i n e , and of production based upon t h i s world market. As t h e world is round, t h i s seems t o have been completed by t h e co lon iza t ion of C a l i f o r n i a and A u s t r a l i a and t h e opening up of China and Japan. The d i f f i c u l t ques t ion f o r us is t h i s : on t h e con t inen t t h e revo lu t ion i s imminent and w i l l immediately assume a s o c i a l i s t cha rac te r . 1s it not bound t o be crushed i n t h i s l i t t l e corner , consider ing t h a t i n a f a r g r e a t e r t e r r i t o r y t h e movement of bourgeois s o c i e t y i s s t i l l i n t h e a ~ c e n d a n t ? ? ~

Here we can see t h e e r r o r of t h e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n which

holds t h a t Marx i d e a l i z e d o r romanticized t h e West and t h e

s p e c i f i c fonn of h i s t o r i c a l development it had undergone, and

which claims t h a t he viewed t h e c a p i t a l i s t West a s a h igh ly

advanced form o f c i v i l i z a t i o n which should be s t r i v e n f o r by a l 1

o t h e r nat ions . The forced i n t e g r a t i o n of t h e n o n - c a p i t a l i s t

world i n t o t h e world-market, t h e v i o l e n t imposi t ion of

The Economics of Marx: Selected Readings of Exposition and C r i t i c i s m . (New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 19761, pp. 243-244

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition. With an Introduction by Eric JI Kobsbawm. (London: Verso, 1998), p. 40

capitalist production relations unto them, was not an ideal or

an end unto itself. In fact, for Marx, it was not even a

conscious historical choice to be made. Rather, it was a process

that, once started, would, through "the need of a constantly

expanding market for its products chase the bourgeoisie over the

whole surface of the globe (and force them to) nestle

everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections

e~erywhere."'~ It was a process largely beyond the control of

even the bourgeoisie thernselves, who would be forced to carry

the inner logic of the accumulation of capital, and the

consequent transformation of the remnant pre-capitalist world

around them, to it ultimate conclusion:

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered fom, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for al1 earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of al1 social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from al1 earlier ones. Al1 fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, al1 new- formed ones becorne antiquated before they can ossify. Al1 that is solid melts into air, al1 that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with

73 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, On Colonialism: Articles f rom the New York Tribune and other Writings. (New York: International Publishers, 19721, p . 322

74 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesta: A Modern Eaition. With an Introduction by Eric J. Bobsbawm. (London: Verso, 1998), p . 39

- 40 -

sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

But if Marx understood that the creation of a totally

capitalist world would be a brutal, destructive and degrading

process, he also realized that the accumulation of capital on a

world scale (a process which used to be called Imperialism but

which nowadays goes by the more 'politically correctr terrn of

Globalization) would have the unintended effect of laying the

groundwork, the material basis, for the possibility of the

revolutionary creation of a worldwide federation of socialist

states and the ending of the prehistory of human existence. 7 6

When a great social revolution shall have mastered the results of the bourgeois epoch, the market of the world and the modern powers of production, and subjected them to the common control of the most advanced peoples, then only will human progress cease

75 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition. With an Introduction by Eric J. Hobsbawm. (London: Verso, 19981, pp. 38-39

'6 I n cont ras t t o the absurd d a i m s made by the S t a l i n i s t defenders of Peaceful Co-existence Fernando Claudin s t r e s sed tha t any successful , fu ture a n t i - c a p i t a l i s t revolut ion ushering i n t he process of s o c i a l i s t construct ion would necessar i ly have t o be completely global i n nature . Claudin noted t h a t "For Lenin, a s f o r Marx and Engels, t he s o c i a l i s t was e s s e n t i a l l y a world revolution, even i f it was not possible f o r t h e working c l a s s t o take power simultaneously i n every country, o r even, except i n unusual circumstances, i n severa l countr ies a t once, This world-wide nature of t h e s o c i a l i s t revolution followed, f o r Marx, from t h e very nature of modem productive forces, which makes cap i ta l i sm a world system, an economic system t h a t tends towards t h e i n t eg ra t i on of human soc i e ty on t h e planetary sca le . A f o r t i o r i , socialism, being t h e product, in t h e l a s t analysis , of a t r a n s i t i o n of t h e productive forces t o a still higher leve l , cannot r e a l l y e x i s t otherwise than a s a world system." Fernando Claudin, The Communist Movement: From Comintern t o Cominform. (London: Penguin Books L td . , 19751, p. 46

t o resemble t h a t hideous pagan i d o l , who would n o t d r i n k t h e n e c t a r b u t from t h e s k u l l s o f t h e s l a i n . 77

Ultimately, t h e ques t ion of whether o r n o t Asiatic

s o c i e t i e s cou ld have achieved c a p i t a l i s t development on t h e i r

own wi thout i m p e r i a l i s t i n t e r v e n t i o n is of secondary importance

i n t h e a t tempt t o understand e x a c t l y hou Marx and Engels

conceived of h i s t o r y , progress and h i s t o r i c a l mater ia l i sm. The

more important ques t ion is: How d i d Marx and Engels

conceptual ize A s i a t i c s o c i e t i e s , and t h e i r p e c u l i a r form of

progress ( o r t h e l a c k t h e r e o f ) , a s being q u a l i t a t i v e l y d i f f e r e n t

from t h e Western model-a form of development which, u n l i k e i n

t h e East , e v e n t u a l l y led t o t h e developrnent of c a p i t a l i s m i n

Europe? An answer may be found i n t h e i r s c a t t e r e d w r i t i n g s and

observat ions on t h e A s i a t i c mode of production.

" Karl Marx, Surveys from Exile: Polit ical Writings: Volume 2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics, 1992) , p. 325

- 42 -

Chapte+ 2: The Otigina of the Asia t ic Mode of Production in the Thought of Marx and Engels

Despite its controversial nature-and unlike most other key

concepts in Marxist theory-the origins of the AMP in the thought

of Marx and Engels, and the reasons for their interest in it can

be accurately pinpointed. Marx and Engels, according to Mandel,

worked out their initial conceptualization of Oriental despotism

and the AMP under the influence of three main currents of

thought: the British political economists they were studying at

the time who employed similar concepts in describing Asiatic

conditions, descriptions of the Orient brought back to Europe by

travelers, adventurers and colonial administrators, and finally,

'special studies they made of village communities in other parts

of the world which led them to recognize the importance of this

type of community in the countries of the ~ast."' A further

impetus for Marx and Engels' interest in Asia was, as Hal Draper

put it, "the growing possibility that the East might provide a

new force for a revolution in the West, perhaps even a decisive

force for initiating the overthrow of a European capitalism

which, having become colonialist, was exploiting not only

workers at home but peoples abr~ad."~

' Ernest Mandel, The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), pp. 120-121

Hal Draper, Karl Marxrs Theory of Revolution Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), pp. 515-516

We have a l r e a d y discussed, i n t h e previous chapter , how

Marx's i n t e r e s t i n t h e Eas t was l a r g e l y a byproduct of h i s

i n t e r e s t i n understanding t h e process whereby t h e c a p i t a l i s t

world was r a p i d l y expanding into t h e p r e - c a p i t a l i s t world around

it. Discussion o f t h e i s s u e o f whether Marx's i n t e r e s t was

s t imula ted p r i m a r i l y by t h e ques t ion of t h e revo lu t ionary

p o t e n t i a l of Asia o r r a t h e r by a d e s i r e t o b e t t e r comprehend t h e

na tu re of t h e c o l o n i a l i s t e x p l o i t a t i o n being t h r u s t upon t h e

p r e - c a p i t a l i s t world i s beyond t h e scope of t h i s t h e s i s . What i s

c l e a r however, i s t h a t Marx's i n t e r e s t i n Asia began t o develop

i n e a r n e s t when he was ass igned by a major American newspaper t o

w r i t e on B r i t i s h c o l o n i a l a f f a i r s i n t h e e a r l y 1850s. Lawrence

Krader s t a t e d t h a t " t h e e a r l i e s t s i g n i f i c a n t w r i t i n g s by Karl

Marx on t h e theory of t h e O r i e n t a l s o c i e t y were brought o u t by

him i n a s e r i e s of a r t i c l e s i n t h e New-York Dai ly Tribune, f o r

which he served a s London correspondent i n t h e 1850s."'

Regarding t h e h i s t o r y o f t h e development of t h e i r thoughts

concerning Asia, Eric Hobsbawm noted t h a t

There is no evidence t h a t before 1848 e i t h e r Marx o r Engels thought o r read rnuch on (Or ien ta l h i s t o r y ) ... t h e p o l i t i c a l developments of t h e 1850s and above al1 Marx's economic s t u d i e s , r ap id ly transformed t h e i r knowledge ...( Marx) began t o publ ish a r t i c l e s on China (June 14) and I n d i a (June 25) f o r t h e New York Daily Tribune i n 1853. I t is evident t h a t i n (1853) both he and Engels were deeply preoccupied with t h e h i s t o r i c a l problems of t h e Orient , t o t h e p o i n t where Engels atternpted t o l e a r n Persian.,It is reasonable t o suppose t h a t Marx's views on A s i a t i c s o c i e t y received

Lawrence Krader, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Sources, Development and Critique i n the Writings of Karl Marx, (Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum & Comp. B.V., 1975), p. B O

- 44 -

their first mature formulation in these months. They were, as will be evident, based on fax more than cursory study.

In any case, 'it was on June 10, 1853 that Marx first publicly

discussed the Asiatic mode of production; he had recently

exchanged ideas on this subject with Engels in a letter sent on

June 2 to which Engels replied on June 10 (sic) ."= Marx initiates discussion on a key feature of Oriental

society in his letter to Engels on June 2.6 'Why does the

history of the East appear as a history of religions?" he asks

Engels. Making reference to Francois Bernier's writings on the

East, Marx observes that this peculiar characteristic of Asiatic

societies can be traced to the fact that "...the king is the sole

and only proprietor of al1 the land" .' Now it has been noted that Marx's goal is to determine which economic and social

conditions, absent in the East but present in the West, allow

for eventual capitalist development in the latter and lead to

stagnation or at least delayed capitalist development in the

former. In keeping with this objective, Marx transfomed

Bernier's statement into a negative description of the economic

Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations. (Eric J. Hobsbawm, Editor). (New York: International Publishers, 1964) pp. 21-22

Ernest Mandel, The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), p. 116; Engels actually replied to Marx's-letter of June 2 on une 6, not the 10th. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Selected Correspondence of Karl

Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-18 95. (New York: International Publishers, 1942) , pp. 64-66

foundations of Asiatic society: "Bernier rightly considers that

the basic f o m of al1 phenomena in the East-he refers to Turkey,

Persia, Hindustan-is to be found in the fact that no p r i v a t e

property i n land e ~ i s t e d . " ~ (Marxf s Italics) For Marx in 1853,

the answer to the question of why Eastern history presents

itself as a history of religions and not of class struggle,

political change and economic progress is to be found in an

investigation of this fact. Based on the preliminary

understanding of Asiatic States he had achieved at the the, he

seemed very certain of this. Avineri observed that, for Marx,

'it is this absence of private property in land that makes the

historical process in Asia so different from European historical

developments. Each of Marx's successive European modes of

production-ancient, feudal, bourgeois-is predicated upon

different yet always existing and widely diffused forms of

private property in land."' As Marx laconically observed, 'This

is the real key, even to the Oriental heaven.""

' Karl Marx and Freder ick Engels, The Se lec ted Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-1895. (New York: I n t e r n a t i o n a l Publishers, 1942), p. 65

Karl Marx and Freder ick Engels, The Selected Correspondence o f Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-1895. (New York: I n t e r n a t i o n a l Publ ishers , l942) , p. 66

M.C. Howard and J.E. King, e d i t o r s , The Economics o f Marx: Selected Readings of Exposit ion and Cr i t i c i sm. [New York: Penguin Books Ltd., l976) , p. 239

la Kar l Marx and Freder ick Engels, The Se lec ted Correspondence o f K a r l Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-1895. (New York: I n t e r n a t i o n a l Publ ishers , 1942), p. 66

However, Marx was to later revise his opinion regarding

the absolute indispensability of the absence of private property

in land as a determining criterion for the AMP. Years later, in

his lengthy discussion of pre-capitalist social formations in

the Grundrisse, he would no longer appear certain of this.

Instead of the absence of private property in land, the

importance of communally owned property--which is something

quite different--is now emphasized and the Asiatic state now

only appears to be founded on the absence of private property in

land :

The all-embracing unity which stands above al1 these srnall cornmon bodies may appear as the higher or sole proprietor, the real communities only as hereditary possessors ... The despot here appears as the father of al1 the numerous lesser communities, thus realising the common unity of all. It therefore follows that the surplus product belongs to this highest unity. Oriental despotism therefore appears to lead to a legal absence of property. In fact, however, its foundation is tribal or common property..ll (my italics)

The same point is brought up in this passage as well:

Amidst oriental despotism and the propertylessness which seems legally to exist there, this clan or communal property exists in fact as the foundation, created mostly by a combination of manufactures and agriculture within the small commune, which thus becomes altogether self-sustaining, and contains al1 the conditions of reproduction and surplus production within itself . l2

I1 Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations. (E r i c J. Hobsbawm, Editor) . (New York: In te rna t iona l Publishers, l964) , pp. 69-70

'' Karl Marx, Grundrisse (Foundations of t h e Cr i t ique of P o l i t i c a l Economy). Translated by Martin Nicolaus. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Baoks Ltd., L973), p. 473

H e once again emphasized t h i s same p o i n t concerning t h e

common possess ion and use of l and years later i n Volume 3 of

Cap i ta l , b u t a t t h e same t i m e r e i n s t a t e d t h e idea of t h e absence

of p r i v a t e proper ty i n land: "...the s t a t e i s then t h e supreme

lo rd . Sovereignty here c o n s i s t s i n t h e ownership o f land

concentra ted on a n a t i o n a l s c a l e . But, on t h e o t h e r hand, no

p r i v a t e ownership of l and e x i s t s , al though t h e r e i s bath p r i v a t e

and common possession and use of land."13 The ques t ion remains:

how c e n t r a l was t h e absence of p r i v a t e p roper ty i n l and t o Marx

and Engelsf conception of t h e AMP? Helene Carrere d'Encausse and

S t u a r t Schram noted t h a t even when Marx learned 'of t h e

ex i s t ence of p r i v a t e proper ty i n land i n China, he continued t o

r egard t h i s country, l i k e India , a s a n example of t h e 'Asiat ic '

sys te~n ." '~ Melo t t i noted t h a t "Marx h i m s e l f had recognised by t h e

l a t e 1850s t h a t Chinese peasants 'for t h e most p a r t held t h e i r

lands, which a r e of very l i m i t e d ex ten t , i n f u l l proper ty from

t h e Crown, s u b j e c t t o c e r t a i n annual charges of no very

e x o r b i t a n t amount' ."'5 Despite t h i s , he continued t o acknowledge

t h i s Asiatic i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of t h e Chinese landholding system on

a number of occasions and c l e a r l y regarded t h e econornic and

l3 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Po l i t i ca l Economy, Volume 3 . Edited by Frederick Engels. (Moscou: Progress Publishers, 19771, p . 791

I4 Helene Carrere d'Encausse and Stuart R. Schram, Marxism and Asia: An Introduction with Readinqs. (London: The Penguin Press, 19691 p . 8

'' Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd,, 1977), p. 188

- 48 -

social structures of these two nations as broadly similar in

many respects. He observed, in Volume 3 of Capital, that

The obstacles presented by the internal solidity and organisation of pre-capitalistic, national modes of production to the corrosive influence of commerce are strikingly illustrated in the intercourse of the English with India and China. The broad basis of the mode of production here is formed by the unity of small-scale agriculture and home industry, to which in India we should add the f o m of village comrnunities built upon the common ownership of land, which, incidentally, was the original form in China as we11. l6

This statement is noteworthy for two reasons. In the first

place, it is essentially an admission by Marx that a nation can

still be considered 'Asiatic' despite the presence of private

property in land or, at the very least, the general absence of

common ownership of the land. Secondly, and more importantly, it

is an indirect admission by Marx that internal change and

progress is possible within the AMP-something which, as has

already been demonstrated, he consistently denied in his first

detailed observations on Asia. Thus, although Marx was aware

that the mode1 of common ownership of the land was a description

that did not fit Chinese conditions very well, and that "his

central thesis about Oriental despotism being based on the

absence of private property in land (did) not apply to China",

he maintained that this was at least the foundation of the

l6 Karl Marx, Cap i t a l : A C r i t i q u e o f P o l i t i c a l Economy, Volume 3 . Edi ted by Freder ick Engels. (Moscow: Progress Pub l i she r s , 19771, p.

p r é s e n t Chinese l and system." M e l o t t i has gane rnuch f u r t h e r than

t h i s , s t a t i n g t h a t d e s p i t e t h e presence o f p r i v a t e pxoperty i n

l and i n its production r e l a t i o n s , "China can be c a l l e d t h e most

c l a s s i c and s i g n i f i c a n t example of a s o c i e t y based on t h e

A s i a t i c mode of psoduction..flE

Stephen Dunn t r a c e d t h e p o s s i b l e source of t h i s confusion

regarding t h e r o l e of t h e absence o f p r i v a t e proper ty i n t h e

concept of t h e AMP t o t h e f a c t t h a t Marx based h i s i n i t i a l

t h e o r i z a t i o n on

accounts by Western t r a v e l l e r s and c o l o n i a l a d m i n i s t r a t o r s desc r ib ing Indian, and, i n a few cases , Chinese society-accounts which s u f f e r e d from t h e unconscious c u l t u r a l b i a s e s of t h e i r authors , who were unable t o f ind p r i v a t e p roper ty of t h e f a m i l i a r Western bourgeois type and t h e r e f a r e concluded t h a t no p r i v a t e proper ty of any kind e x i s t e d i n t h e O r i e n t a l s o c i e t i e s which they observed.

On the o t h e r hand, t h e Indian au thor Guna pointed o u t t h a t

Chinese s o c i e t y may have indeed been c h a r a c t e r i z e d by a

q u a l i t a t i v e l y d i f f e r e n t and unique forrn of p r i v a t e landholding,

one i n which t h e king was "only a nominal owner of a l 1 lands"

who possessed " t h e d i v i n e r i g h t over the e n t i r e p roper ty i n a

State3*. In return, "the king would confe r t i t u l a r r i g h t s on

f r a c t i o n s o f land and slaves to t h e members of t h e king's royal

" M.C. Howard and J , E . King, edi tors , The Economics of Marx: Selected Readings of Exposition and Criticism. (New York: Penguin Books Ltd . , 19761, pp. 239, 254

IR Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third Warld. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977). p. 105

l9 Stephen Dunn, The Fa11 and Rise of the Asiatic Mode of Production. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982) , p. 85

household o r c lan , and t o those nobles ... who have done mer i to r ious

s e r v i c e t o t h e kingdom."'' I n this context , we begin t o see t h e

q u a l i t a t i v e d i f f e r e n c e between t h e s i t u a t i o n o r i g i n a l l y

descr ibed by Bernier ('the king (as) t h e s o l e ...p roprietor..!' ) and

Marx's i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f t h i s . The two propos i t ions are very

d i f f e r e n t and ' so le p ropr ie to r sh ip , c e r t a i n l y s i g n a l s something

very d i f f e r e n t from an absence of p r i v a t e p roper ty i n land, a t

l e a s t i n t h i s context . I n any case , it seems c l e a r t h a t Marx

even tua l ly moved away £rom h i s o r i g i n a l understanding of

Bernier 's s ta tement as a re fe rence t o t h e complete absence of

p r i v a t e proper ty i n l and and towards a mode1 of t h e AMP based

upon genera l i zed common ownership of t h e land.

However, t h e genera l absence of p r i v a t e p roper ty i n land

cannot be completely dismissed a s an e s s e n t i a l f e a t u r e , poss ib ly

even a determinant one, of t h e AMP. Marx e x p l i c i t l y s t a t e d , i n

'The Future Resul ts of the B r i t i s h Rule i n India" t h a t t h e

in t roduc t ion of t h e Zemindari and Ryotwari systems of l and

tenure i n India , which involved "two d i s t i n c t forms o f p r i v a t e

proper ty i n l and (was) t h e g r e a t desideratum of A s i a t i c

s ~ c i e t y . " ~ ~ This s ta tement c e r t a i n l y i l l u s t r a t e s t h e c e n t r a l i t y

and importance of t h e absence of p r i v a t e proper ty i n land, not

j u s t t o h i s conception o f t h e AMP but indeed, t o i t s very

20 Guna, Asiatic Mode: A Socio-Cul turaL Perspective. (Delhi, India: Bookwell Publication, 1984) , pp. 66-67

2' Karl Marx, Surveys from Exile: Pol i t ica l Writings: Volume 2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics, 1992), p. 320

survival as a distinct mode of production. Now while it seems

clear that private property in land could exist within the

boundaries of the AMP, it is equally clear that the AMP could

continue to exist and survive only as long as generalized

private property in land has still not been widely established,

forcefully or otherwise, and as long as free and largely

unhampered access to good land was still possible throughout

these Asiatic social formations.22 In the Grundrisse, Marx had

clearly stated that one of the preconditions for the emergence

of capitalism was the separation of the worker from her land or

'natural workshop':

Another presupposition (of wage labour) is the separation of free labour from the objective conditions of its realization-from the means of labour and the materials for labour. Thus, above all, release of the worker from the soi1 as his natural workshop-hence dissolution of small, free landed property as well as of communal landownership resting on the oriental commune. 23

Marx's treatment of the issue of private property in land

in the AMP, in his early writings on Asia, reveals two distinct

inconsistencies in his preliminary analysis of Asia. On the one

hand, the significance of the absence of private property in

land or, conversely, the presence of large-scale common

22 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx. ( N e w York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), pp, 137-138; W e have already noted, i n t h e previous chapter, how t h e enforced, large-scale p r iva t i za t i on of land i n India by the B r i t i s h helped br ing about the revolutionary d i sso lu t ion of t r a d i t i o n a l Indian soc ie ty .

K a r l Marx, Grundrisse (Foundations of t h e Cr i t ique of P o l i t i c a l Economy). Translated by Martin Nicolaus. (Hamondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973), p. 471; This point w i l l be discussed f u r t h e r l a t e r on.

ownership o f l and f o r t h e continued s u r v i v a l of t h e AMP i s never

f u l l y and d e f i n i t i v e l y e luc ida ted . The two a r e n o t t h e same and

it seems l i k e l y t h a t both forms of l and t enure may have

coexis ted , t o g e t h e r o r a t d i f f e r e n t h i s t o r i c a l per iods , wi th in

t h e AMP. On t h e o t h e r hand, Marx's i n d i r e c t admission t h a t a

Chinese AMP could be marked by t h e ex i s t ence of p r i v a t e proper ty

i n l and meant t h a t , con t ra ry t o h i s i n i t i a l p o s i t i o n which was

later abandoned, t h e r e was tpragress'-even i n t h e Western sense

of t h e word-in A s i a t i c s o c i e t i e s a f t e r a l l . Indeed, it would

appear t h a t Marx and Engels i n c r e a s i n g l y came t o be l i eve , a s

t h e i r understanding of Asiatic s o c i e t y deepened, t h a t t h e ' r e a l

key' t o t h e AMP was t o be found i n something o t h e r than e i t h e r

t h e mere absence o f p r i v a t e proper ty i n land, o r , more

genera l ly , t h e na tu re of t h e proper ty r e l a t i o n s e x i s t i n g i n

A s i a t i c s o c i e t y . The secret of A s i a t i c s o c i e t i e s rested i n o t h e r

f a r more fundamental d e t e m i n a n t s - i n t h e p e c u l i a r na tu re of t h e

economic foundations o f t h e AMP, which t h e absence o f p r i v a t e

proper ty and presence of communal ownership i n l and merely

helped t o b r i n g about and s u s t a i n .

Engels' i n h i s response t o Marx on June 6, 1853, engaged

i n a h igh ly speculative--and much debated--geographical o r

environmental determinism i n h i s a t tempt t o come t o terms with

t h e p e c u l i a r economic h i s t o r y o f A s i a . Agreeing wi th Marx's

o r i g i n a l observat ions regarding t h e absence o f p r i v a t e p roper ty

in land, He asks the question: "How does it come about that the

Orientals do not arrive at landed property, even in its feudal

for~n?"~~ He proceeds to answer his own question by drawing

attention to the climatic conditions, topographic features and

geographical characteristics of the vast areas that comprise

Asiatic societies:

1 think it is mainly due to the climate, together with the nature of the soil, especially with the great stretches of desert which extend from the Sahara straight across Arabia, Persia, India and Tartary up to the highest Asiatic plateau. Artificial irrigation is here the first condition of agriculture and this is a matter either for the communes, the provinces or the central government. 25

This need for the provision and maintenance of artificial

irrigation was seen by Marx and Engels to be so essential to the

very survival of the AMP that they considered it as one of the

three main reasons for the very existence of the Asiatic form of

state structure. A few days later, Marx declared that: "There

have been in Asia, generally, from immemorial times, but three

departments of government: that of finance, or the plunder of

the interior; that of war, or the plunder of the exterior; and,

finally, the department of public ~orks."'~ For Marx, Godelier

2q Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Selected Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-1895, (New York: International Publishers, 1942), p. 67

25 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Selected Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-1895. (New York: International Publishers, 1942), p. 67

26 Karl Marx, Surveys from Exile: Pol i t ica l Writings: Volume 2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics, 1992), p. 303; This comment was taken, practical ly verbatim, by Marx from Engel's l e t t e r

noted, "the Asiatic mode of production is linked to the need to

organize major economic projects beyond the means of particular

communities or isolated individuals and constitutes the

precondition for productive activity for these c~mmunities."~~

This is the first allusion by either Marx or Engels to the

idea that the rise of the Asiatic state power, which eventually

achieves 'ownership of land concentrated on a national scale',

is linked ta the objective need for this state power to fulfill

certain objective duties-relating to irrigation and agriculture-

which no other entiry in the entire kingdom is capable of

carrying out. The completion of these massive tasks therefore

devolves to the central state authority, and, ultimately, to the

personification of this authority-to the so-called Asiatic

'despott. Marx, in the Grundrisse, observed that "The communal

conditions of real appropriation through labour, aqueducts, very

important among the Asiatic peoples; rneans of communication etc.

then appear as the work of the higher unity-of the despotic

of June 6, 1853--which shows t h a t Marx was i n general agreement with Engels regarding the importance of these grea t publ ic works i n the As ia t i c s t a t e . In t h i s l e t t e r , Engels had observed t h a t ',.an Oriental government never had more than three departments: finance (plunder a t home), war (plunder a t home and abroad) , and public works (provision f o r reproduction)." Marx, Karl and Frederkk Engels. The Selected Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-1895. (New York: In te rna t iona l Publishers, 19421, p. 67

27 Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, ed i tors , The Asia t ic Mode of Production: Science and Po l i t i c s . (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 19811, p. 265

regime hovering over t h e l i t t l e I n a s i t u a t i o n

wherein t he despot ic S t a t e au tho r i t y ru les over a l 1 and is, a t

t he same t i m e , t h e main-or possibly t he only-owner of a l 1 t h e

land i n t h e empire, then land-rent and a l 1 taxes co l l ec t ed by

t h i s s t a t e become one and t h e same:

Should t h e d i r e c t producers not be confronted by a p r iva t e landowner, bu t ra ther , a s i n Asia, under d i r e c t subordination t o a s t a t e which s tands over them a s t h e i r landlord and simultaneously a s sovereign, then r e n t and taxes coincide, o r r a the r , t he re e x i s t s no tax which d i f f e r s from this fonn of ground-rent. Under such circumstances, t he re need e x i s t no s t ronger p o l i t i c a l o r economic pressure than t h a t common t o a l 1 subject ion t o t h a t s t a t e . The s t a t e i s then the supreme lord.29

However, Engelsf suggestion regarding t h e v i t a l nature of

publ ic works a s a founding component of As i a t i c S t a t e s merely

begs t he question: How does t he accomplishment of c e r t a i n tasks ,

benef i t ing soc i e ty a s a whole, allow the As i a t i c s t a t e t o

achieve cont ro l and ownership of a l 1 land i n t h e f i r s t place?

Engels1 himself provided the most concrete, ye t f a r from f u l l y

s a t i s f ac to ry , answer 25 years l a t e r i n t h i s passage from Anti-

Duhring:

I t i s not necessary f o r us t o examine here how t h i s independence of s o c i a l functions i n r e l a t i o n t o soc i e ty increased with time u n t i l it developed i n t o domination over socie ty; how what was o r i g i n a l l y t he se rvan t developed gradually, where condi t ions were favourable, i n t o t h e lord; how t h i s lord, on t h e

28 Karl Marx, Grundrisse (Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy). Translated by Martin Nicolaus. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., l973], pp. 473-474

29 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 3. Edited by Frederick Engels. [Moscow: Progress Publishers, 19771, pp. 790-791

basis of different conditions, emerged as an Oriental despot or satrap, the dynast of a Greek tribe, chieftain of a Celtic clan, and so on; and to what extent ultimately used force in this transformation; and how finally the separate individual rulers united into a ruling class. Here we are only concerned with establishing the fact that the exercise of a social function was everywhere the basis of political supremacy; and further that political supremacy has existed for any length of t h e only when it fulfilled its social functions . 30 Godelier pointed out that it is the gradua1 transformation

of this functional or socially useful power (maintenance of

irrigation, dike-building, dredging of marshes and rivers, etc.)

exercised by a social minority 'into an exploitative power and

into domination by an exploitative class ... which leads to the

emergence of class societie~."~~ He argues that Marx, "without

having been completely aware of it, described a form of social

organization specific to the transition from classless to class

society, a form which contains the contradiction of that very

tran~ition."~' The salient point raised by Engels-that a person

30 Frederick Engels, Herr Eugen Duhringf s Revolution i n Science (Anti- Duhring). (New York: Internat ional Publishers, 19391, pp. 198-199

31 David Seddon, ed i tor , Relations of Production: Marxist Approaches t o Economic Anthropoloqy . (London: Frank Cass and Company, Ltd., 1978 1 , p. 212; Discussion of whether o r not t h e As ia t i c S t a t e bureaucracy formed a class i n spec i f i ca l ly Marxist terms is beyond the scope of t h i s t hes i s . The more general question of whether o r not bureaucraties a r e s o c i a l c l a s se s was of course in tense ly debated with the r i s e of Stal inism i n the 20t" century. It has already been noted t h a t the idea t h a t an As ia t i c bureaucracy could cons t i t u t e i t s e l f i n t o an exploiting class was one of the reasons f o r t he opprobriurn t h e AMP suffered within the Comintern and, more spec i f ica l ly , t he USSR.

32 Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Po l i t i c s . (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981), p. 264

or group of persans performing a socially usefu l task for the

benefit of society as a whole could potentially come to exert

economic, social and political domination over that society-was

to later become one of the cornerstones of the Marxist theory of

burea~cracy.~' However, while this explanation illustrates the

historical route by which a group or faction could transform

itself into an exploiting class, it nevertheless fails to

outline the mechanism and process by which this transformation

is actually c~rnpleted.~~ In fact, Engelsf explanation is in some

respects tautological: The Asiatic state needs to accomplish

great public works to come into existence and these great public

works require the existence of a state power to undertake them

in the first place. As Lichtheim observed, Oit remains uncertain

how Marx envisaged the historical genesis of a relationship

which counterposes the State as supreme landlord to the peasant-

j3 The Marxist theory of bureaucracy was t o be most f r u i t f u l l y app l ied i n t h e 2oth century by Leon Trotsky i n h i s extended a n a l y s i s o f t h e degenerat ion o f t h e Russian Revolution and eventual f a l l , i n 1991, of t h e Soviet Union.

j 4 The a t tempt t o exp la in t h e mechanism o r process o f t h i s t ransformat ion o f s o c i a l funct ion i n t o s t a t e power has c l e a r l y l e d some Marxists a s t r a y . Eugene Varga argued t h a t because t h e A s i a t i c s t a t e a r i s e s n o t through class s t r u g g l e bu t due t o t h e o b j e c t i v e need f o r t h i s s t a t e t o provide p u b l i c works, then t h i s s t a t e was o f a "completely p a c i f i s t nature". Quoted i n Marian Sawer, "The P o l i t i c s o f Hiçtoriography: Russian Socia l ism & The Question o f t h e A s i a t i c Mode of Production l906-l93l." C r i t i q u e 10-11 (Winter-Spring, 1978-79) , p. 19; Varga's p ropos i t ion is q u i t e dubious on s e v e r a l counts, no t t h e l e a s t o f which is t h e a u t h o r r s extremely static conception o f t h e A s i a t i c state. The bulk o f Marx and Engels wr i t ings on Asia l e a d t o a model o f a r e l a t i v e l y autonomous A s i a t i c state s t r u c t u r e which was c e r t a i n l y no t o f a ' p a c i f i s t r nature , and Engels himself once c a l l e d o r i e n t a l despotism " t h e most barbarous form of t h e state." Frederick Engels, Herr Eugen Duhringts Revolution i n Science (Anti-Duhring) . (New York: I n t e r n a t i o n a l Publ ishers , 1939), p. 200

producer ." 35 Despite this shortcoming, Engelsr revised formula is

still superior to the original geographical and environmentally

determinist explanation he offered in 1853, which traced the

rise of Asiatic states simply to environmental pressures which

in turn dictated the need for massive hydraulic works. In

actuality, both explanations may have played a role.

We have noted how Marx, in 1853 at any rate, was clearly

in agreement with Engels regarding the environmentally

determinist explanation offered by the latter. In an article

written for the New York Daily Tribune just four days after

Engels re~lied~~ to him Marx repeats essentially the same ideas

elaborated by Engels. However, there is a new, important and

previously undiscussed qualification now added:

This prime necessity of an economical and common use of water, which in the Occident drove private enterprise to voluntary association, as in Flanders and Italy, necessitated in the Orient, where civilination was too low and the territorial extent tao vast to cal1 into life voluntary association, the interference of the centralizing power of government. Hence an economical function devolved upon al1 Asiatic governments, the function of providing public works . ''

The administration of the great public works in Asiatic Society

was left to the 'despotid central authority due to largely

'' George Lichtheim, "Marx and t h e 'Asiat ic Mode of Production' ." i n St. Antony's Papers, Number 1 4 . Edited by G.F. Hudson. (London: Chatto and Windus, 1963), p, 96

36 The a r t i c l e was wr i t t en by Marx on June 10, 1853. However, it was not published u n t i l June 25, 1853.

environmental and geographical reasons, and, we might add now,

because of the impossibility of voluntary association arising on

its own. However, this situation is itself a result of a

political and economic development of a particular type, what

Marx problematically referred to as 'too low a level of

civilization', as well as a specific geographical situation, a

territory simply too vast, a people too spread out to do without

the intervention of a bureaucratic central authority.

Discussion of the possible ethnocentric or Eurocentric

connotations of Marx's statement, as well as the related

question, raised by Edward Said and others, of whether or not

Marx was working within an 'Orientalist' paradigm, is beyond the

scope of this thesis . 3 0 However, it seems clear that when Marx

spoke of civilization being 'too lowt to engender voluntary

association of the type which arose in Western Europe, he was

alluding not to the lack of some sort of Promethean, Western or

civilizing 'Spiritr on the part of Asia--or even its alleged

'lack of history', a much-debated, Hegel-influenced conception

which he publicly discussed only once.3g Rather, it would seem

I7 Karl Marx, Surveys from Exile: P o l i t i c a l Writings: Volume 2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics, 1992), p. 303

38 Aijaz Ahmad undertakes an exce l len t c r i t i q u e of Edward Saidf s charge of 'orientalism' leveled against Marx. See Chapter 6 ("Marx on India: A Clar if icat ion") of h i s I n Theory: Classes, Nations, Li teratures .

39 '-the whole of (India 's) pas t his tory, i f it be anything, is the h i s to ry of the successive conquests she has undergone. Indian soc ie ty has no h is tory a t a l l , a t l e a s t no known his tory. What we c a l 1 its h i s to ry is but t he h i s to ry of t h e successive in t ruders who founded t h e i r empires on the passive basis of t h a t unresis t ing and unchanginq

that Marx was referring to the much more mundane fa& that the

economic infrastructure of the Asiatic state was founded upon a

vast network of completely autonomous, self-contained and self-

sufficient villages, a form of economic development which

hindered precisely the European or Feudal f o m of voluntary

association from spontaneously developing in ~sia.~' In "The

British Rule in India", Marx States that

These two circumstances-the Hindu, on the one hand, leaving, like al1 Oriental peoples, to the central government the care of the great public works, the prime condition of his agriculture and commerce, dispersed, on the other hand, over the surface of the country, and agglomerated in small centres by the domestic union of agricultural and manufacturing pursuits-these two circumstances had brought about, since the remotest times, a social system of particular features-the so-called village system, which gave to each of these small unions their independent organization and distinct li fe . 41 (italics in original)

He repeats essentially the same description in his reply to

Engels on June 14, 1853:

The stationary character of this part of Asia-despite al1 the aimless movement on the political surface-is fully explained by two mutually dependent circumstances: (1) the public works were the business of the central government; (2) beside these the whole empire, not counting the few larger toms, was resolved into villages, which possessed a completely

society." Karl Marx, Surveys f rom Exile : Pol i t i ca l Writings : Volume2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics , 19921, p . 320

Melotti argues the same point: ''too low a degree of civil isationt, .can probably be taken here as being the same thing as the low l e v e l o f productive forces." Umberto Melotti, Marx and t h e Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 19771, p . 55

4L KarL Marx, Surveys from Exile: Po l i t i ca l Writinqs: Volume2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics, 19921, p. 304

separate organisation and formed a little world in themselves . " (italics in original) Marx clearly believed that the principal cause of the

delayed development of the AMP relative to the West ( i . e . , the

cause of its low level of civilization) was to be found in these

detached and isolated villages which formed 'worlds unto

themselvest . Lawrence Krader described these as follows: "Each village tended to be a self-sustaining unity, with little

dependence on the outside world, having little communication

with each other, or with the sovereign power. They were close(d)

corporations . " 4 3 Voluntary association of any kind is hampered,

if not rendered impossible, by the peculiar social composition

and economic structure of these "idyllic village communities,

(which) inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the

solid foundation of Oriental despotism." 4 4 Ervand Abrahamian

clarified the specific meaning of the latter statement by Marx,

noting that

These communities-villages, tribes, and t o m quarters-sharply fragmented the population into 'microcosms" which were separated from each other by geography, by the lack of commerce, by language and religion, by partiarchical (sic) organizations, and by a constant struggle for scarce resources-

'' Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Selected Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-1895. (New York: In te rna t iona l Publishers, l942), p. 70

Lawrence Krader, The As ia t i c Mode of Production: Sources, Development and Cri t ique i n t h e Writings of Karl Marx. (Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum & Comp. B.V., 1975), p. 288

" Karl Marx, Surveys from Exile: P o l i t i c a l Writings: VolurneS. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics , i992), p. 306

especially water and rain-fed land. By fragmenting the population, the Asiatic mode strengthened the vertical communal ties while preventing the growth of horizontal cross-regional class consciousness. By preventing the growth of class consciousness, the Asiatic mode of production permitted the ruler-the oriental despot-to manipulate society unhampered by viable feudal estates. 45

For Marx it was the self-sufficient economic structure of

these villages which was the essential defining feature of the

AMP itself. Furthermore, in contrast to the question of private

property in land, Marx appears to have held on to this

definition of the AMP-a system of self-sufficient villages ruled

over by a centralized, despotic goverment-for the rest of his

life.46 In Volume 1 of Capital, he makes this observation:

Those small and extxemely ancient Indian communities, for example, some of which continue to exist to this day, are based on the possession of the land in common, on the blending of agriculture and handicrafts and on an unalterable division of labour...The simplicity of the productive organism in these self-sufficing communities which constantly reproduce themselves in the same form and, when accidentally destroyed, spring up again on the same spot and with the same name-this simplicity supplies the key to the riddle of the unchangeability of Asiatic societies, which is in such striking contrast with the constant dissolution and refounding of Asiatic states, and their never-ceasing changes of dynasty. The structure of the fundamental economic elements of society remains untouched by the storms which blow up in the cloudy regions of politi~s.~~

4 5 Ervand Abrahamian, "European Feudalism and Middle Eastern Despotisms ." Science and Society Vol. 39, No. 2 (Summer, 1975) , p. 155

46 Mandel, Lichtheim, Carrere d'Encausse and Schram, Melotti, t o name a few of many authors, are i n genexal agreement that these two factors described by Marx are the absolutely essent ia l detennining features of the AMPnot the absence o f private property i n land, as has often been ascribed t o him.

Marx concluded that these village communities could remain

self-contained and self-sufficient, in other words, completely

isolated from each other, far longer than in the Feudal or

Ancient mode of production due to their combination of

agricultural as well as industrial production. Mandel notes

that, "the 'interna1 logict of a Society of this kind works in

favor of a very great degree of stability in basic production

relation^."^' He further observed that "...the village community

retains an essential cohesive force which has withstood the

bloodiest of conquests through the ages ... This internal cohesion

of the ancient village community is further increased by the

close union of agriculture and craft industry that exists in

it . " 4 9 This particular combination of production was not just

the key to both the economic structure and the completely self-

sufficient nature of the village communities; it was, in fact,

the foundation of natural economy itself:

In natural economy proper, when no part of the agricultural product, or but a very insignificant portion, enters into the process of circulation ... the product and surplus-product of the large estates consists by no means purely of products of agricultural labour. It encompasses equally well the products of industrial labour. Domestic handicrafts and manufacturing labour, as secondary occupations of

4' Kar l Marx, Capi ta l : A Cri t ique o f P o l i t i c a l Economy, Volume 1. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and t r a n s l a t e d by Ben Fowkes. (New York: Vintage Books, l976) , pp. 477-478; 479

46 Ernest Mandel, The Formation o f The Economic Thought o f Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), p. 122

4 9 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of The Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), pp. 121-122

agriculture, which foms the basis, are the prerequisite of that mode of production upon which natural economy rests-in European antiquity and the Middle Ages as well as in the present-day Indian community, in which the traditional organisation has not yet been destroyed.

Despite his stress on the self-sufficient and self-

reproducing nature of the productive relations present in the

ancient village system, it has already been noted that for Marx

the AMP did not produce complete stagnation of the productive

forces but rather, delayed or retarded development of these

relative to the West. The tendency on the part of certain

authors to blur or eliminate the crucial distinction between

these two has led to the cornonplace charge that Marx envisioned

Asian history in a strictly undialectical manner and that

therefore the basic concepts of historical materialism are

inapplicable to Asia. Avineri defends this Eurocentric

interpretation of historical materialism, arguing that 'for

(Marx) Asia had no history, a view that is quite startling

coming £rom Marx. Stated biuntly it implies that Marx is aware

of the fact that his philosophy of history does not account for

the majority of mankind since it is relevant only to the

European e~perience."~' The evidence presented thus far supports

the opposite view, defended by Melotti, that "...Marx does not

~ a r l Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 3 . Edited by Frederick Engels. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), pp. 786-787

deny t h a t Asiatic s o c i e t y has known changes, even s u b s t a n t i a l

changes; he only denies t h a t those changes made any d i f f e r e n c e

t o its economic b a s i s , t h a t they ever r e v o l u t i o n i s e d i t s mode of

p r o d u c t i ~ n . " ~ ~ I n t h e Grundrisse, Marx noted t h a t "The Asiatic

form n e c e s s a r i l y hangs on most t enac ious ly and f o r the l o n g e s t

tirne. This is due t o i ts presupposi t ion t h a t t h e ind iv idua l does

not becorne independent vis-A-vis the commune; t h a t t h e r e is a

s e l f - s u s t a i n i n g circle of production, u n i t y o f a g r i c u l t u r e and

manufactures, etc ."'' Thi s t e n a c i t y and extreme s t a b i l i t y i n t h e

basic product ion r e l a t i o n s l ead t o "...retardeci development, which

i n the end proved f a t a l t o t h e n a t i o n s based on t h i s mode of

production ."54

How did s o c i e t i e s based upon t h e AMP succeed i n

mainta in ing and preserving their basic product ion r e l a t i o n s f a r

longer and more success fu l ly than those s o c i e t i e s based upon

o t h e r modes of production such as Feudalism o r slavery? In o t h e r

words, why did the West g e t i t s c r u c i a l l e a d over Asia on t h e

road t o c a p i t a l i s m i n the first place? This ques t ion is al1 the

more puzzl ing, given the f a c t t h a t the AMP conta ined many of t h e

'' M.C. Howard and J . E . King, editors, The Economics of Marx: Selected Readings of Exposition and Criticism. (New York: Penguin Books Ltd., L976), p. 242

52 Iimberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), p. 104

53 Karl Marx, Grundrisse (Foundations of t h e Critique of P o l i t i c a l Economy) . Translated by Martin Nicolaus. (Kamondswo~h: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973), p. 406

'key i n g r e d i e n t s f , s o t o speak, of 'progressr. Cer ta in ly , t h e

form of t h e s e l f - s u f f i c i e n t v i l l a g e communes r u l e d by a d e s p o t i c

s ta te s t r u c t u r e is one c l u e which p o i n t s towards delayed

development. However, some au thors have pointed o u t t h a t t h e AMP

was a c l a s s s o c i e t y . Melo t t i has argued t h a t i n fact, t h e AMP

possessed a f a i r l y developed c l a s s s t r u c t u r e : ",..as well as S t a t e

officiais and peasants , t h e r e were landed p r o p r i e t o r s , who had

i l l e g a l l y appropr ia ted land a t times when t h e c e n t r a l a u t h o r i t y

was weak, and t h e r e were sometimes immensely r i e h bankers and

mer chant^..!'^^ To understand why these c l e a r l y def ined c l a s s e s

never came i n t o open c o n f l i c t with each other-or a t least not t o

a s u f f i c i e n t i n t e n s i t y t o he lp 'pushr h i s t o r y along as i n

Europe-we do not need t o p o s t u l a t e o r a s c r i b e a 'pr imi t iveness l

o r s i m p l i c i t y t o Asia a s many Eurocentr ic t h e o r i s t s do. Melo t t i

asks : 'If t h e (AMP) r e a l l y had been ' i n f e r i o r ' ... t o t h e c l a s s i c a l

o r feudal modes, it i s hard t o understand how t h e r e could have

been such a f lowering of r e l i g i o n , a r t , sc ience and philosophy

i n t h e Asiatic framework i n India , China, Egypt, Mesopotamia,

Pers ia , Arabia and elsewhere ."56

The AMP was a far more complex s o c i a l formation than has

o f t e n been acknowledged by most Western h i s t o r i a n s (Joseph

54 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of T h e Economic Thaught of K a r l Marx. (New York: Monthly R e v i e w P r e s s , 19711, p. 123

55 Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), p. 103

Needham being one very c l e a r exception t o t h i s ) . Krader p o i n t s

out that

... t h e A s i a t i c mode of production i s fa r from p r i m i t i v e , bu t conta ins t h e same r e l a t i o n s and moments o f p o l i t i c a l economy and s o c i e t y as are conta ined i n the c a p i t a l i s t : i n both, commodities a r e exchanged and produced, c a p i t a l i s fomed . These r e l a t i o n s a r e mare f u l l y brought o u t i n modern p o l i t i c a l s o c i e t y , bourgeois s o c i e t y , which i s t h e most h igh ly developed and most many-sided o rgan iza t ion of production i n history. This is t h e major theme i n Marx's Capi ta l . They a r e a l ready ev iden t , al though not i n s o high a degree, i n t h e Asiatic mode of production, which belongs i n t h e same category of p o l i t i c a l economy and s o c i e t y a s t h e c a p i t a l i s t . ''

Marx, however, ass igned a 'subordinate' r o l e t o commodity

production wi th in the AMP:

I n the a n c i e n t A s i a t i c , Class ica l -ant ique , and o t h e r such modes of production, t h e t ransformat ion o f t h e product i n t o a commodity, and t h e r e f o r e men's e x i s t e n c e a s producers of commodities, p lays a subordinate r o l e , which however i n c r e a s e s i n importance a s these communities approach n e a r e r and n e a r e r t o t h e s t a g e of t h e i r d i s s ~ l u t i o n . ~ ~

I n h i s view, commodity production f a i l e d t a achieve a c e n t r a l

r o l e i n t h e economy of t h e AMP s i n c e

56 Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1377), p. 16

5' Lawrence Krader, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Sources, Development and Critique in the Writings of Karl Marx. (Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum & Comp. B.V., 1975), p. XII; In a more ironic tone, Lichtheim likewise stated that "Oriental society is something more complex than a system of canals, It has to do, on the one hand, with centralized, i.e, despotic, regulation of the basic economic functions and, on the other, with the prevalence of the self- sufficient village economy." George Lichtheim, "Marx and the 'Asiatlc Mode of Production' ." in St . Antony' s Papers, Number 14. Edited by G.F. Hudson. (London: Chatto and Windus, 19631, p. 93

Most of the products are destined for direct use by the comunity itself, and are not commodities ... It is the surplus alone that becomes a comodity, and a part of that surplus cannot beconie a comodity until it has reached the hands of the state, because from time hemorial a certain quantity of the communityfs production has found its way to the state as rent in kind. 59

In addition to the existence of commodity production, Marx also

acknowledged the presence of divisions of labor within the AMP.

This, however, did not necessarily lead to generalized commodity

production:

This division of labour is a necessary condition for commodity production, although the converse does not hold; commodity production is not a necessary condition for the social division of labour. Labour is socially divided in the primitive Indian community, although the products do not thereby become commodities . 60

Marx also noted the existence of usury in the AMP as well as the

largely minimal effect this had on underminhg the existing mode

of production:

Usury has a revolutionary effect in al1 pre- capitalist modes of production only in so far as it destroys and dissolves those forms of property on whose solid foundation and continua1 reproduction in the same fom the political organization is based. Under Asian foms, usury can continue a long the, without producing anything more than economic decay and political corruption. Only where and when the

'' Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Po l i t i ca l Economy, Volume 1. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and translated by Ben Fowkes. (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), p. 172

59 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Po l i t i ca l Economy, Volume 1. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and translated by Ben Fowkes. (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), pp. 477-478

60 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Po l i t i ca l Economy, Volume 1 . Introduced by Emest Bande1 and translated by Ben Fowkes. (New York: Vintage ~ o o k s , 1976), p. 132

o t h e r p r e r e q u i s i t e s of c a p i t a l i s t product ion a r e p r e s e n t does usury become one o f t h e means a s s i s t i n g i n es tab l i shment of t h e new mode of product ion by r u i n i n g t h e feudal l o r d and small-scale producer, on t h e one hand, and c e n t r a l i s i n g t h e c o n d i t i o n s o f labour i n t o c a p i t a l , on t h e o the r . 61

There are two key, i n t e r r e l a t e d f a c t o r s which s e r v e t o

exp la in why, d e s p i t e t h e ex i s t ence of classes, commodity

production and usury, etc., t h e AMP managed t o p rese rve i t s

b a s i c production r e l a t i o n s ( i n t h e f o m of t h e v i l l a g e communes

and common ownership of t h e land) and remain l a r g e l y unchanged

f o r c e n t u r i e s . On t h e one hand, t h e a r t i f i c i a l and secondary

na tu re of t h e c i t i e s wi th in A s i a t i c s o c i e t y rneant t h a t t h e

c i t ies and towns i n t h e s e s o c i e t i e s never managed t o

economically and p o l i t i c a l l y dominate t h e countrys ide i n t h e

manner o r e x t e n t t h a t t h e European towns d i d wi th in Eeudal

s o c i e t i e s . On t h e o t h e r hand, t h e d e s p o t i c s t a t e exerc i sed too

s t rong a r u l e and t a o dominant a r o l e over al1 of t h e most

important p o l i t i c a l and economic aspec t s of A s i a t i c s o c i e t y f o r

a t r u e c i v i l s o c i e t y o r 'publ ic spherer t o a r i s e similar t o

those which e v e n t u a l l y developed i n Europe.

The towns and ci t ies o f A s i a t i c s o c i e t y were g e n e r a l l y

nothing more than a r t i f i c i a l c r e a t i o n s of t h e s t a t e superimposed

upon t h e countrys ide from above. I t is t h e Asiatic s t a t e ' s

unwavering economic and p o l i t i c a l c o n t r o l over t h e s e ' a r t i f i c i a l

Karl Marx, Capi ta l : A Crit ique of P o l i t i c a l Economy, Volume 3. Edited by Frederick Engels. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), pp. 5 96-5 97

c r e a t i o n s r which expla ins why t h e s e towns and cities could not

develop i n t o t h e i s l a n d s of p r i v a t e p roper ty t h a t t h e i r European

coun te rpar t s managed t o become. They remained l a r g e l y

economically and p o l i t i c a l l y dependent upon t h e s t a t e f o r

s u r v i v a l . An embryonic bourgeois class would have been unable t o

a r i s e , much less develop any measure of p o l i t i c a l o r economic

autonomy , t h i s s i t u a t i o n . Melo t t i pointed o u t t h a t Marx ' did

not regard t h e Asiatic agglomerations a s t r u e c i t i e s , but only

a s ' royal camps' without a t r u e product ive funct ion ...( which were

incapable o f ) providing the b a s i s of a ' c i v i l soc ie ty ' ... o r an

urban c u l t u r e e x i s t i n g independently o f t h e r u l i n g ~ y s t e m . " ~ ~ I n

Volume 3 of Cap i ta l , Marx had obsenred t h a t

It is i n t h e na tu re of th ings t h a t a s soon a s town i n d u s t r y a s such separa tes from a g r i c u l t u r a l indus t ry , i ts products a r e from t h e o u t s e t commodities and thus r e q u i r e t h e mediation of commerce f o r t h e i r s a l e . The leaning of commerce towaras t h e development of towns, and, on t h e o t h e r hand, t h e dependence o f t o m s upon commerce, are s o f a r n a t u r a l .

But t h i s separa t ion of town-based i n d u s t r y and a g r i c u l t u r e never

took place-a t l e a s t not t o a s u f f i c i e n t degree-in Asiatic

soc ie ty , due t o t h e s e l f - s u f f i c i e n t na tu re of t h e v i l l a g e

communes and t o t h e a r t i f i c i a l and secondary na tu re of the towns

and cities, which were dominated from above by t h e s t a t e .

Godelier observed that " i n s o far a s t h e s t a t e f s e x p l o i t a t i o n o f

Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan P r e s s , Ltd., 1977) , p. 101

t h e communities t a k e s t h e form o f a massive levy o f revenue i n

kind, t h e s t r u c t u r e s o f production can s t a b i l i s e s i n c e t h e r e i s

no i n c e n t i v e t o c r e a t e a market ... t h e s e forms o f e x p l o i t a t i o n can

be s o i n t e n s e t h a t they ho ld back t h e development of product ion

f o r a long t ime . "64 This meant t h a t genera l ized commodity

product ion (production f o r exchange) could no t begin t o t a k e

p l a c e and thus , production remained e s s e n t i a l l y production of

use-values ( ' des t ined f o r direct use by t h e community i t s e l f r ) . As Mandel pointed ou t , '...it i s t h e developrnent of t h e production

of exchange values i n t h e t o m s t h a t makes p o s s i b l e p r e p a r a t i o n

f o r t h e predominance o f c a p i t a l ."65 I n t h i s s i t u a t i o n , even t h e

most massive amounts o f luxury production and p r i v a t e t r a d e

c a r r i e d o u t on behalf of t h e A s i a t i c despot and t h e r o y a l cour t ,

and "even t h e very g r e a t e s t accumulation of sums of money did

not lead t o a process of c a p i t a l a c ~ u m u l a t i o n . " ~ ~ I n sum, " t h e

Marxian d e s c r i p t i o n of A s i a t i c c i t ies evokes a p a r a s i t i c a l

63 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 3. Edited by Frederick Engels. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), pp. 331-332

64 Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, editors, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), p. 268

65 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of The Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), p. 123

66 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of The Econamic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, lgïl), pp. 124, 127

client existence in the shadow of the despotic power that shapes

t hem. " 67

On the other hand, the overwhelming and stifling presence

of the Asiatic state must certainly be considered another reason

why the AMP failed to make the leap to capitalism on its own.

This state control over society helps explain why the classes

described above would have been unable to achieve the necessary

measure of political and economic independence as their European

counterparts achieved within feudal society. More importantly,

the statefs total power meant that the process of the

expropriation and privatization of the land, (what Marx called

the 'secret8 of primitive accumulation) and the consequent

transformation of labor-power into a commodity, never took place

t a the same extent as it did in Europe. The Asiatic state

managed to remain the nominal, if not actual, owner of the great

rnajority of the land despite al1 the conquests, invasions and

natural disasters which Asiatic societies suffered through.

Communal landownership survived largely unscathed. Marx had

noted, in Volume 1 of Capital, that "the production of

comodities leads inexorably to capitalist production,

once ...p rimitive common ownership has ceased to be the basis of

society (India). In short, from the moment when labour-power in

6-1 Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., l g ï 7 ) , p. 101

general becomes a ~omodity."~' ~ h e despotic control exercised by

the Asiatic state contributed greatly towards preventing or at

least slowing both the commodification of labour power and the

large scale privatization of commonly held land. In the end,

none of the emergent classes already described could

sufficiently overcome the dominant role exercised by the Asiatic

state to achieve a historical breakthrough comparable to the

European:

The historically specific feature of Asiatic society implied in the mode1 is the fact that even those classes never managed, under a suffocating state power, to gain for any length of time that degree of social and political power or ideological and cultural freedom that in the West opened the way to capitalism ... In Asia, in short, the State was pre- eminent and its complete hold over political and economic life prevented the development of an autonomous sphere of 'civil society'. 69

The two factors outlined above lead to an understanding of

why the AMP failed to properly develop into a different mode of

production such as feudalism or capitalism. However, they also

offer an indirect hint at the reasons for the eventual

dissolution and destruction of this mode of production. It has

already been noted that the main requirement for the

establishment of capitalist production relations is the

expropriation of freely available land from the workers and the

elimination of the comrnon ownership of land based upon the

-

Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and translated by Ben Fowkes. (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), p. 951

o r i e n t a l commune. This large-scale p r i v a t i z a t i o n of land could

begin t o take place, along with t h e d i s so lu t i on of t h e AMP, only

when the As i a t i c s t a t e could no longer continue i t s p o l i t i c a l

and economic domination over soc ie ty . In addi t ion , once they

were f reed from t h e i r economic subservience t o t h e As i a t i c

s t a t e , t he towns and cities could begin t o reassume, on a

g r ea t l y acce le ra ted pace and sca le , t h e i r previously suppressed

ro les a s cen te rs of p r iva t e property, t rade , commerce, commodity

production and, eventually, c a p i t a l accumulation:

His tor ica l ly , p r iva t e property by no means makes i t s appearance a s t he r e s u l t of robbery o r violence. On the contrary. It already exis ted, even though it was l imi ted t o c e r t a i n ab jec t s , i n the anc ien t pr imit ive communes of a l 1 c i v i l i s e d peoples. I t developed even within these communes, a t f i r s t through b a r t e r with s t rangers , till it reached t h e form of commodities. The more t he products o f t h e commune assumed t h e commodity form, t h a t is, t h e l e s s they were produced f o r t h e i r producers' own use and the more f o r t he purpose of exchange, the more the o r i g i n a l pr imit ive d iv i s ion of labour was replaced by exchange a l s o within t h e commune, t h e more d id i nequa l i t y develop i n the property of t he individual members of t h e commune, t h e more deeply was the anc ien t common ownership of t he land undermined, and the more rap id ly d i d t he commune move towards i t s d i s so lu t i on and transformation i n t o a v i l l age of srna11 peasants. For thousands of years Oriental depotism (sic) and t h e changing r u l e of conquering nomad peoples were unable t o change t h i s o l d form of commune; it saw the gradua1 des t ruc t i on of t h e i r o r i g i n a l home industry by t he competition of products o f large-scale indus t ry which brought them nearer and nearer t o d i s s o l ~ t i o n . ~ ~

Umberto Melotti , Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., l977), p. 103

70 Frederick Engels, Anti-Duhrinq: Herr Eugen DuhringCs Revolution i n Science. (New York: International Publishers, 1939), pp. 179-180

Although the dissolution of the AMP could either be

internally generated through class struggle or externally driven

by colonial conquest, in both cases the elimination and

destruction of the power of the Asiatic state remained the key

element and the central prerequisite for dissolution. Another

result of the destruction of the Asiatic state power was the end

of its role in the maintenance and provision of the great public

works which were absolutely essential for the survival of the

self-sufficient village communities. This development only

served to further accelerate and hasten the final destruction of

the AMP. Engels noted this particular result of British colonial

rule in Anti-Duhrinq:

However great the number of despotic governments which rose and fell in India and Persia, each was fully aware that its first duty was the general maintenance of irrigation throughout the valleys, without which no agriculture was possible. It was reserved for the enlightened English to lose sight of this in India; they let the irrigation canals and sluices fa11 into decay, and are now at last discovering, through the regularly recurrent famines, that they have neglected the one activity which might have made their rule in India at least as legitimate as that of their predecessors. 71

This in turn raises the question of whether or not the

Asiatic state had to necessarily be engaged in the provision and

maintenance of massive public works in order to qualify as an

exarnple of the AMP. This is an issue which has been heavily

debated over the years as well. Karl Wittfogel is one author

Fredôrick Engels, Anti-Duhring: Kerr Eugen Duhringfs Revolution in Science, (New York: International Publishers, 19393, p. 199

who-rightly, in my opinion-argued for the centrality of such

public works as a determining feature of the AMP. Maurice

Godelier adopted the opposing point of view, arguing that '...we

do not consider it necessary to search mechanically with

Wittfogel for gigantic, rnainly hydraulic, projects, a

bureaucracy and a strongly centralised authority in order to

rediscover the 'Asiatic' mode of production."'* Indeed, Godelier

proposes two different models or historical routes which might

lead to the development of an AMP. The main difference between

these two models is that the original (Marx's) is based upon the

organization and undertaking of massive public works, while the

second (Godelier's) envisions the possibility of the AMP arising

without the need for, or in the absence of, such major econornic

proje~ts.'~ Godelier defends this interpretation of the AMP

despite the fact that Marx often stressed the centrality and

importance of these public works to his definition of the AMP.

Mandel points out that in order to corne up with his particular

definition of an AMP, Godelier must "... suppress, first and

foremost, the key role that Marx and Engels attributed to

l2 Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981), p. 266

l3 Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 19811, p. 265

hydraulic and other large-scale public works in the

establishment of this mode of prod~ction."'~

However, this abandonment of what Wittfogel temed the

'hydraulic thesis* leads Godelier and other like-minded authors

to a serious, and unavoidable, conceptual problem. Quite simply,

once these authors take their argument to its logical

conclusion, they cannot help but suddenly discover, to their

great 'shock', that the AMP has existed at some stage in

virtually every pre-capitalist social formation they

investigate. In Godelier's own words,

,.the archeological and ethnological knowledge accumulated since the nineteenth century provides (the AMP) with a field of application which Marx and Engels could not have envisaged. In becoming more and more widely applicable both in time and space, the concept no longer applies exclusively to Asia. It rnay therefore be necessary to abandon the use of the adjective 'Asiaticr . 75

Once the AMP is stripped of the defining elements (such as

the presence of a state bureaucracy engaged in large-scale

public works) that endow it with a distinct and specific set of

characteristics, it would be quite easy to take the next step in

74 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of The Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), p. 124

75 Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The As ia t i c Mode of Production: Science and Po l i t i c s . (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 19811, p. 265; Hal Draper is another author who adopted t h i s viewpoint. He declared t h a t "It was Marx who f i x s t s t a t e d t h a t t he mode of production which Europeans had discovered i n Asia i n modern t i m e s had a l s o ex is ted i n t h e prehis tory of European society, t h a t t h e Asia t ic mode of production had t o be considered a more o r l e s s world-wide development, even though it had taken d i f f e r e n t paths i n d i f f e r en t regions and had fos s i l i zed i n one of them." Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume 1: S ta t e and Bureaucracy. (New York: MonthLy Review Press, 19771, p. 537

declaring this mode of production as markinq, in almost every

instance, the first steps of humanity out of the primitive

commune and into the first manifestation of an embryonic class

society. This does far too much justice and injustice to the AMP

and, intentionally or otherwise, turns it into still another

universal stage in human history, albeit one occurring at the

very dawn of human society. Instead of a futile search for an

everywhere existing 'feuda1° mode of production, as the

Comintern historians were forced into, Godelier is led into the

very same search and discovery of an Asiatic mode 'no longer

applicable exclusively to Asia'. Thus, after a slight

theoretical detour, Godelier's model leads to the reinstatemen.t

of the very same unilinear model of history which defenders of

the AMP fought against, and sought to eliminate, in the first

place. 76

The goal, in any attempt to defend the place of the AMP in

the thought of Marx and Engels, or, more specifically, in their

conception of historical materialism, cannot be to attempt to

replace a 'false universal' (feudalism) with yet another 'false

universal' (the AMP). Rather, an understanding of what is unique

76 It is highly ironic that one o f the strongest d u e s f o r a multil inear interpretatian of historical materialism ends up being used by Gadelier as its very opposite. It should also be noted that the defenders o f a universalized AMP must ignore al1 of Marx and Engels' assertions that the AMP actually survived up unt i l the 1800's and the beginning of cap i ta l i s t k r u s l o n s in to the pke-capitalist world. This issue is examined i n greater d e t a i l i n the following chapter.

or specifically 'Asiatic' about the AMP would allow the concept

to be properly and fairly situated within the framework of an

undogmatic and multilinear theory of history. It is imperative

that this would be a version of historical materialism which

would allow the accommodation of a growing and ever changing

body of knowledge concerning both the diversity of the pasts of

human society as well as its possible future directions. The AMP

contains certain key elements, and these can clearly be

discerned from the writings of Marx and Engels:

1) There is at least a general, if not absolute, absence of

private property in land. In addition, the common ownership

of land is the predominant form of land tenure.

2) The economy of Asiatic society is founded upon a system of

village communes, each of which is completely isolated,

socially and economically, from al1 the others due to their

combination of both agricultural as well as manufacturing

pursuits. This particular combination makes each village a

completely self-sufficient socio-economic entity highly

resilient to change.

3) The geographic, environmental and climatic factors in the

regions dominated by the AMP require the presence of a

central authority to provide, regulate and maintain great

public works which are an essential precondition for the

continued survival of the isolated village communes.

4 ) Due in part to (2) and (3) , the Asiatic state eventually achieves a commanding role in society. It regulates most, if

not all, the basic economic functions of society, achieves

nominal or actual ownership of al1 land and is simultaneously

both the sovereign (the sole tax-collecting entity) as well

as landlord. It therefore "succeeds in concentrating the

greater part of the social surplus product in its own hands,

which causes the appearance of social strata maintained by

this surplus and constituting the dominant power in society

(whence the expression 'Oriental despotism' ) ."" Melotti has observed that "Marx's emphasis shifts, in

different portions of his works, from one of (these) elements to

another ."" He vacillated on the question of private property in land, especially in China. In fact, it is not fully certain

whether or not he still considered China as an example of the

AMP in the late 1850's and after. He never fully resolved the

issue of whether societies based upon the AMP could have

develaped or 'progressed' beyond this stage without colonial and

imperialist intervention. The issue of how the Asiatic state

eventually achieved such a 'despotic' level of control over

society is also left largely unanswered. In some texts, he

attributes the cause of this preeminent role of the state to

" Ernest Mandel, The Formation of The Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), p. 122

la Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., l g i l ) , p. 57

ecological and climatic determinants. In other instances, the

economic and political isolation of the individual villages is

seen as the main factor that leads to the despotism of Asiatic

States. And so on. But these should not detract from the

significance and overall coherence of the idea of an Asiatic

mode of production in the thought of Marx and Engels.

Ultimately, the present author agrees with Melottifs observation

that

It would be al1 too easy to show Marx contradicting himself in this connection, but it would also be meaningless, since al1 the factors mentioned go in some degree to make up the Oriental sysrem, and they intermingle and interact in a multitude of complex ways. Any attempt to reduce the dialectical process to the old-fashioned language of cause and effect can only lead, as Barel well saw, to the 'simplified Marxisrn' that has to bear a terrible cross: 'the blind alley of reciprocal action, with its awful penalty, the general intexdependence of phenornena, which describes everything and explains nothing . '

Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third Warld. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., N i i ) , p. 57

Chaptar 3: The Placa o f the Asiatic Mode o f Production Within Historical Materialam

A Klee p a i n t i n g named Angelus Noms shows an ange1 looking a s though he is about t o move away from something he i s f i x e d l y contemplating. H i s eyes a r e s t a r i n g , h i s mouth is open, h i s wings a r e spread. This i s how one p i c t u r e s t h e angel of h i s t o r y . H i s f a c e is tu rned towards t h e p a s t . Where w e perceive a cha in of events, he sees one s i n g l e ca tas t rophe which keeps p i l i n g wreckage upon wreckage and h u r l s it i n f r o n t of h i s f e e t . The ange1 would l i k e t o s t a y , awaken t h e dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm i s blowing from Paradise; it has g o t caught i n h i s wings with such v io lence t h a t t h e ange1 can no longer c l o s e them. This storm i r r e s i s t i b l y propels him i n t o t h e f u t u r e t o which h i s back i s turned, while t h e p i l e of d e b r i s be fore him grows skyward. This s torm is what we c a l 1 progress .' The AMP is a c l e a r l y def ined concept which played an

important r o l e and remained i n t e g r a l t o Marx and Engels' ve r s ion

of h i s t o r i c a l material ism. Zndeed, t h e AMP remains an e s s e n t i a l

component of t h e theory today. Thus, t h e ques t ion of whether o r

not t h e two authors even tua l ly abandoned o r r e j e c t e d t h e

v a l i d i t y of t h e concept has become a l a r g e l y academic i s sue ,

given t h a t renewed resea rch and i n t e r e s t i n how s p e c i f i c s o c i a l

formations f i t i n t o t h e o v e r a l l h i s t o r i c a l process has led t o a

g r e a t l y inc reased understanding of t h e importance of t h e AMP t o

Marxism. The ques t ion is no longer whether o r no t t h e AMP e x i s t s

- - - -- --

Walter Benjamin, 'Theses on the Philosophy of Kistory." I n Bronnex, Stephen Er i c and Douglas Mackay Kellner, edi tors . C r i t i c a l Theory and Society: A Reader. (London: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc., 19891, p. 258

but rather, how it fits into a revised2 and updated historical

materialism. As Bailey and Llobera point out:

... recent discussions of the AMP have coincided and fed inta a wider, re-examination of historical materialism. Theoretical justifications for modifying, developing, or discarding a concept of the AMP are grounded in more fundamental explorations of the epistemological and theoretical status of the concepts of 'mode of production' , 'social formation' , 'classt, 'relations of productionf, \exploitationf, etc.

Any discussion of the position, as well as the role, of

the AMP within historical materialism must begin with a re-

examination of how the theary is most often interpreted or

understood in the first place. In other words, it is necessary

to begin with an examination of what are commonly referred to as

the two 'motors of historyf. In the first of these, history is

seen as a continuous process of increasing human and class

consciousness leading to class struggle and revolution. In the

second, history is seen as a continuous and unceasing

development of the forces of production in society, a process

which eventually causes these productive forces to come into

open conflict with the existing relations of production, which

' "Revisionisdr is one of t h e most misunderstood and misused words i n Marxist theory. A discussion of the t e m , and the many uses and abuses of it, is beyond t h e scope of t h i s t hes i s . I t is s u f f i c i e n t t o point out t h a t any theory which daims t o accurately represent a t r u l y d i a l e c t i c a l i n t e r ac t ion between a ' r ea l objectr (such a s t h e human o r na tura l world) and t h e comprehension of t h i s object i n thought and pract ice, must, by defini t ion, be constant ly revised t o r e f l e c t i n thought the forms of motion of t h e 'realr . A theory which f a i l s to accomplish t h i s s t ep o s s i f i e s i n t o ideology and becomes a s t a t i c and undia lec t ica l body of e te rna l , f ixed ' t ruthsf .

"from forms of development of the productive forces,.turn into

their fetter~."~ Many authors, including Jorge Larrain have

observed that a tension between these two prime movers of the

historical process clearly existed in the thought of Marx and

Engels.' In other words, any such discussion must account for

the nature of the dialectical interaction between the two

driving forces of historical development as well as the often

differing emphases Marx, Engels and later Marxists tended to

place on one or the other of these.

At this point it should be reiterated that Marx and Engels

were often forced ta lay greater stress on either the

subjective, conscious aspect or the objective, material aspect

of their theory due to political expediency, polemical

requirements or because of the peculiar nature of the specific

historical and political conjunctures they were commenting on,

etc. In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (one of the

greatest applications of the methods of historical materialism

to the concrete analysis of a concrete historical situation)

Marx developed an analysis of the French state and bureaucratic

apparatus which greatly ernphasized their relative autonomy in

Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, editors, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 19811, p. 237

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), p. 182

Jorge Larrain, A Reconstruction of Historical Materialism. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986) , pp. 23-24

r e l a t i o n t o t h e c l a s s fo rces i n revolut ionary France.' This was

due t o a s p e c i f i c h i s t o r i c a l s i t u a t i o n i n which h igh ly p e c u l i a r

circumstances (most notably, a set of s o c i a l c l a s s e s had which

had fought themselves t o a more o r less balanced s t a lemate ) had

conspired t o g ive t h e state a n appearance of complete, i n s t e a d

o f r e l a t i v e , autonomy. Marx noted t h a t under Bonapartism, " t h e

s t a t e seem (ed) t o have made i t s e l f completely independent ."' H e

hastened t o add however, t h a t " the s t a t e power i s no t suspended

i n m i d a i r " and t h a t u l t ima te ly , Bonapartism was t h e p a r t i c u l a r

h i s t o r i c a l mani fes ta t ion of a d e f i n i t e c l a s s wi th in French

Society.' I t can be seen, i n t h i s example, how Marx was o f t e n

w i l l i n g t o g ive due emphasis t o s u p e r s t r u c t u r a l determinants i n

h i s t o r i c a l explanat ion. On t h e o t h e r hand, Engels, i n h i s l e t t e r

t o Franz Mehring on J u l y 1 4 , 1893, expla ined t h a t

... we a l 1 l a i d , and were bound t o l ay , t h e main emphasis, i n t h e f i r s t p lace , on t h e d e r i v a t i o n of p o l i t i c a l , j u r i d i c a l and o t h e r ideo log ica l not ions , and of a c t i o n s a r i s i n g through t h e medium of t h e s e not ions , frorn b a s i c economic f a c t s . But i n s o doing w e neglected t h e formal s ide- the ways and means by which t h e s e not ions , etc., come about-for t h e sake of t h e content.

K a r l Marx and Frederick Engels, Publishers, 1968) , pp. 95-180

' Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Publishers, l968), p. 171

a Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Publishers, 1968) , pp. 170-171

Karl Mam, Frederick Engels and

Selected Works.

Selected Works.

Selected Works .

(Moscaw: Progress

[Moscow : Progress

(Moscow: Progress

V. T. Lenin, On HistoricaL Materialism. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1984 ) , p. 303

He also admitted, to Joseph Bloch, that "Marx and 1 are

ourselves partly to blame for the fact that the younger people

sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to

it. We had to emphasize the main principle vis-&-vis Our

adversaries, who denied it, and we had not always the time, the

place or the opportunity to give their due to the other elements

involved in the interaction."1° This quite strongly implies that

a greater emphasis on one or another causal factor in some of

their writings does not necessarily imply that the two authors

considered that particular factor to be predominant over any

other, or vice versa. Indeed, Larrain pointed out that

it is possible to find an accent on scientific laws at certain points which is superseded by an emphasis on political practices at others; sometimes Marx underlines traditional materialist premisses to criticize idealism but at other times he stresses idealist premisses to criticize the old materialism; occasionally the influence of the Hegelian conception of historical totality and dialectic is predominant whereas at other junctures the specificity of irreducible historical movements is highlighted. " Nevertheless, Marx and Engels clearly placed great stress

on the idea of history as a necessary process which inevitably

leads to progress towards some predetermined goal or ideal in at

least some of their writings. In the more extreme fomulations

of this idea, classes are regarded simply as 'bearers' of the

economic structures which perpetually progress forward, and are

K a r l Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works. [Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), p. 693

IL Jorge Larrain, A Reconstruction of Historical Materialism. (London: Allen 6 Unwin, 1986), pp. 10-11

treated as nothing more than passive objects through which the

cunning of history eveatually reveals itself. According to

Larrain, 'this process is conceived in Marx's early writings as

the necessary development of human nature and later, in his

mature works, as a process of natural history subject to

definite laws ."" In Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, Engels had asserted that the task of a

philosophy of history "...ultimately amounts to the discovery of

the general laws of motion which assert themselves as the ruling

ones in the history of human society."" Re further emphasized

this point by noting that historical events are "always governed

by inner, hidden laws and it is only a matter of discovering

these laws."14 In the Postface to the Second Edition of Volume 1

of Capital, Marx wholeheartedly agreed with the observations of

a Russian economist, 1. 1. Kaufman, when he declared that

The one thing which is important for Marx is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and it is not only the law which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connection within a given historical period, that is important to him. Of still greater importance to him is the law of their variation, of their developrnent, i.e. of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connections into a different one. Once he has discovered this law, he investigates in detail the effects with which it manifests itself in social

l2 Jorge Larrain, A Reconstruction of Historical Materialism. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986) , p. 24

L3 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), p. 622

'' Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968 ) , p. 623

l i fe . .he proves, a t t h e same t h e , bo th the n e c e s s i t y of t h e p r e s e n t o r d e r of th ings , and t h e n e c e s s i t y of another o r d e r i n t o which t h e f i r s t must i n e v i t a b l y pass over; and it is a mat ter o f i n d i f f e r e n c e whether men b e l i e v e o r do n o t be l i eve it, whether t h e y are conscious o f it o r not . Marx t r e a t s t h e s o c i a l movement a s a process of n a t u r a l h i s t o r y , governed by laws no t on ly independent of human w i l l , consciousness and i n t e l l i g e n c e , bu t r a t h e r , on t h e contrary , determining t h a t w i l l , consciousness and i n t e l l i g e n c e ... 15

Conscious human i n t e r v e n t i o n i n t h e h i s t o r i c a l process seems

r a t h e r use less , i f no t completely impossible, i n t h i s

d e t e r m i n i s t i c and t e l e o l o g i c a l conception of h i s t o r y .

And y e t Marx and Engels o f t e n stressed wi th equal , i f not

g r e a t e r f e rvor , t h e idea t h a t h i s t o r y was open-ended and non-

t e l e o l o g i c a l , t h a t i n t h e l a s t ins tance , it was a product of

conscious human i n t e r v e n t i o n and c l a s s s t r u g g l e . I t has a l ready

been noted, i n t h e previous chapter , t h a t t h e es tabl ishment of

c a p i t a l i s t product ion r e l a t i o n s through t h e expropr ia t ion of t h e

land upon which t h e p r i m i t i v e communes were iounded was a

process t h a t had t o be set i n motion through t h e conscious

a c t i o n s and p o l i t i c a l i n t e r v e n t i o n of a d e f i n i t e c l a s s of

e x p l o i t e r s . A s Marx dec la red i n t h e Grundrisse:

The o r i g i n a l cond i t ions of p r o d u c t i o n , . . c a ~ o t themselves o r i g i n a l l y be products- resul ts of production, It i s not t h e u n i t y o f l i v i n g and a c t i v e humanity wi th t h e n a t u r a l , inorganic cond i t ions o f t h e i r metabol ic exchange with nature , and hence t h e i r appropr ia t ion of nature , which r e q u i r e s exp lana t ion

'' Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Pol i t ica l Economy, Volume I. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and translated by Ben Fawkes, (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), pp. 100-LOI; Marx was i n such f u l l agreement with Kau£inanrs characterization of his method that he was moved to declare ".-what else i s (the reviewer) depicting but the d ia lect ica l m e t hod?"

o r i s t h e r e s u l t of a h i s t o r i c process, b u t r a t h e r t h e separa t ion between t h e s e inorgan ic condi t ions of human ex i s tence and t h i s a c t i v e ex i s t ence , a s e p a r a t i o n which i s completely p o s i t e d only i n t h e r e l a t i o n of wage-labour and c a p i t a l . l6

I n s h o r t , t h e o r i g i n a l condi t ions of c a p i t a l i s t production had

t o be consciously created and t h i s r equ i red a v ic ious , prolonged

and u l t i m a t e l y one-sided process of c l a s s s t r u g g l e . I n Volume 1

of Cap i ta l , Marx had c l e a r l y emphasized t h e consciously

organized and planned na tu re o f t h i s l a rge -sca le th ievery:

The process, the re fo re , which c r e a t e s t h e c a p i t a l - r e l a t i o n can be nothing o t h e r than t h e process which d ivorces the worker from t h e ownership o f t h e cond i t ions of h i s own labour; it i s a process which opera tes two t ransformat ions , whereby t h e s o c i a l means of subsis tence and production a r e tu rned i n t o c a p i t a l and t h e immediate producers a r e turned i n t o wage-labourers. So-called p r i m i t i v e accumulation, t h e r e f o r e , is nothing else than t h e h i s t o r i c a l process of d ivorc ing t h e producer from t h e means of production ... these newly f r e e d men becarne sellers of themselves only a f t e r they had been robbed of a l 1 t h e i r own means of production, and a l 1 t h e guarantees of ex i s t ence af forded by t h e o l d feuda l arrangements. And t h i s h i s t o r y , t h e h i s t o r y of t h e i r expropr ia t ion , i s w r i t t e n i n t h e annals of mankind i n letters of blood and f i r e . "

This carries profound impl ica t ions f o r t h e s o c i a l i s t p r o j e c t .

For i f c a p i t a l i s t production r e l a t i o n s were o r i g i n a l l y c r e a t e d

through c l a s s s t r u g g l e and n o t by b l i n d economic fo rces working

independently beyond human in te rven t ion , t h e n it i s al1 t h e more

L6 K a r l Marx, Grundrisse (Foundations of t h e Cr i t ique of P o l i t i c a l Economy). Translated by Martin Nicolaus. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books L t d . , l973), p. 489

'' K a r L Marx, Capital: A Cri t ique of P o l i t i c a l Economy, Volume 1. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and t r a n s l a t e d by Ben Fowkes. (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), pp. 874-875

apparent that socialism (the first historic attempt at a

planned, large scale reorganization of al1 aspects of human

society along less oppressive and more egalitarian lines) will

necessarily be a conscious and carefully designed human

creation-not an inevitable historical development occurring

against the will of the classes involved. Perhaps the most well

known description by Marx and Engels of history as both an open-

ended process and an indeteminate result of class struggle is

to be found in the opening lines of the Communist Manifesta:

The history of al1 hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classe^.'^

History, therefore, is not simply the preordained result

of the development of the productive forces and the eventual

conflict of the existing relations of production with these. It

is not shply the movement and progress of transhistorical

economic structures and abstract material forces, which secretly

make use of women and men, as passive and unknowing subjects, to

accomplish their predetedned mission. History is also the

product of the revolutionary action of real human beings. It is

these very same human beings, divided into definite social

classes-not economic structures-who, in the final instance, will

accomplish the emancipation of humanity-or 'the common ruin of

the contending classes'. Istvan Meszaros observed that

Far from being an 'economic determinist', Marx was in fact deeply concerned with the freedom of human self- emancipation arising from the real possibilities of the 'active sider to transcend the antagonisms of 'prehistory' and to move towards the 'realm of the new historic form' . However, both the tangible liberating potentials and the objective constraints of this emancipatory movement had to be defined with precision, in contrast to the vacuity of 'freedorn' conceived as the philosophical contemplation of the Idears self-realisation in the enslaving actuality and 'eternal presentl of the capitalist state. lg

There is substantial evidence to suggest that both Marx

and Engels conceived of history as an open-ended, non-

teleological process which allowed for the conscious and planned

intervention of human beings in determining its o u t ~ o r n e . * ~ In The

Holy Family, Marx and Engels had asserted that

le Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition. (London: Verso, 1998) , pp. 34-35

l9 I s tvan Meszaros, 'The Nature of H i s to r i ca l Determination." Cri t ique 30-31 (1998), p. 98

Unfortunately, t h i s does not mean t h a t a conscious and planned in te rvent ion w i l l necessar i ly lead t o t h e co r r ec t , des i red end. Marx's proviso t h a t we cannot base our opinion of an ind iv idua l on what she th inks of he r se l f , o r judge a period o f h i s t o r i c a l transformation by i ts own consciousness holds t rue . I n "Ludwig Feuerbach and the End o f C la s s i ca l German Philosophy", Engels declared t h a t " i n s p i t e of t he consciously des i red aims of a l 1 individuals , accident apparently re igns on t h e surface. That which is willed happens but rarely; i n t h e majori ty of instances the numerous des i red ends cross and con f l i c t with one another, o r these ends themselves are from the ou tse t incapable of r e a l i s a t i o n o r t h e means of a t t a i n i n q them a r e i n su f f i c i en t . Thus the c o n f l i c t s of innumerable individual w i l l s and ind iv idua l ac t i ons i n t he domain of h i s to ry produce a s t a t e of a f f a i r s e n t i r e l y analogous t o t h a t prevai l ing i n t h e realnt of unconscious nature. The ends of t he ac t ions a r e intended, but t h e r e s u l t s which a c t u a l l y follow from these ac t ions a r e not intended; o r when they do seem t o correspond t o t h e end intended, they u l t imate ly have consequences q u i t e o ther than those intended." Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and V. 1. Lenin. On Hi s to r i ca l Materialism. (Moscow: Progress

History does nothing, it 'possesses no immense wealtht, it 'wages no battlest . It is man, real, living man who does al1 that, who possesses and fights; 'history' is not, as it were, a person apart, using man as a means to achieve its own aims; history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims . *'

A similar conception of history as the conscious and planned

actions of human beings carrying out activities for their own

ends was developed by the two authors in the German Ideology:

History is nothing but the succession of the separate generations, each of which exploits the materials, the capital funds, the productive forces handed down to it by al1 preceding generations, and thus, on the one hand, continues the traditional activity in completely changed circumstances and, on the other, modifies the old circumstances with a completely changed activity. 22

Ultimately, Marx and Engels asserted the dialectical

nature of the interaction between the subjective, or conscious,

aspects of historical development and the objective, or

structural aspects. Engels emphasized this point in his letter

to Joseph Bloch on September 21, 1890:

..According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx nor 1 have ever asserted. Hence if

Publishers, 1984), p. 229; Engels a l s o repeated the exact sarne idea of h i s to ry a s an i n f i n i t e c l a sh of individual , con f l i c t i ng w i l l s i n h i s l e t t e r t o Joseph Bloch on September 21, 1890. H e a l s o discussed the 'colossal disproport ion between the proposed aims and t h e r e s u l t s a r r i ved at" by human attempts t o inf luence t h e course of h i s to ry i n t h e introduct ion t o h i s Dialect ics of Nature. Frederick Engels, Dialectics of Nature. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 198 6) , p . 35

2' Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Holy Family, o r Cr i t ique of C r i t i c a l Criticism: Aqainst Bruno Bauer and Company. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 110

22 Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and V. 1. Lenin, On Hi s to r i ca l Materialism. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1984), p. 35

somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure-political forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc., juridical forms, and even the reflexes of al1 these actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into systems of dopas-also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form."

The complexity of this dialectical methodology cannot be

underestimated or simplified. It is not simply a question of a

straightforward or mechanical determination of the

'superstructure* by the 'base1. In "Contingent and Necessary

Class Consciousness", Meszaros observed that "although the

economic foundations of capitalist Society constitute the

'ultimate determinants* of the social being of its classes,

these 'ultimate deteminantsl are at the same t h e also

'determined determinantsl ." 24 He clarif ied this by pointing out that "the various institutional and intellectual manifestations

23 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968) , p. 692

24 Is tvan Meszaros, ed i to r* Aspects of History and Class Consciousness. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1971), p. 87; Meszaros' formulation echoes the one advanced by Althusser i n "Contradiction and Overdetermination": " the economic d i a l e c t i c is never ac t ive i n the pure s t a t e ; i n History, these instances, t he superstructures , etc.-are never seen t o s t e p respec t fu l ly as ide when t h e i r work is done or, when the Time comes, as h i s pure phenornena, t o s c a t t e r before H i s Majesty the Economy a s he s t r i d e s along t h e royal road of the Dialect ic . From the f i r s t moment t o t he l a s t , t he lonely hour of the ' l a s t instance' never cornes." Louis Althusser, For Mam. Translated by Ben Brewster. (London: New Lef t Books, 1977), p. 113

of human life are not simply 'built uponr an economic basis, but

also actively structure the latter through the immensely

intricate and relatively autonomous structure of their own .lt2'

This dialectical interaction of the various determinant

forces of historical development meant that history itself was

an open-ended and uncertain process and that the future course

of human progress and the growth of societies were not entirely

predictable. Consequently, Marx and Engels argued that

historical materialism could not simply be used as a ready-made

set of laws to which the real world had to be forced into

conformance with. There is no room for the assertion of

historical inevitability or fatalism in Marxrs theory of

history. On the contrary, Meszaros had observed that the

"plausibility (of genuine historical explanations) hinges on

whether or not they can account for the 'active sidei through

which history is constantly being made, and not merely given as

a brute conglomeration and fatalistic conjuncture of self-

propelling material forces ."26 Engels elaborated on this point in

his letter to Paul Ernst: "...I should Say first of al1 that the

materialist method turns into its opposite if, in a historical

study, it is used not as a guide but rather as a ready-made

pattern in accordance with which one tailors the historical

25 Istvan Meszaros, editor, Aspects of History and Class Consciousness. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 19711, p . 87

26 Istvan Meszaros, "The Nature of Historicai Determination." Critique 30-31 (19981, p . 93

f a ~ t s . " ~ ~ This was a l so the g i s t of Engelst criticism of Eugen

Duhringts obfuscating depict ion of Marx's h i s t o r i c a l method. In

response t o Duhring's charge t h a t Marx had t o r e l y on the

' d i a l e c t i c a l crutchesl of t h e Hegelian negation of t h e negation

t o prove t h a t 'the kne l l of c a p i t a l i s t p r iva t e property w i l l

eventual ly soundr and t h a t a s o c i a l i s t revolut ion w i l l

inev i tab ly 'expropriate t h e expropria tors ' , Engels c l a r i f i e d

t h a t

In charac te r i s ing t h e process a s the negation of the negation, therefore , Marx does not dream of attempting t o prove by t h i s t h a t t he process was h i s t o r i c a l l y necessary. On the contrary: a f t e r he has proved from h i s to ry t h a t i n f a c t the process has p a r t i a l l y a l ready occurred, and p a r t i a l l y must occur i n t h e fu ture , he then a l so charac te r i ses it a s a process nhich develops i n accordance w i t h a d e f i n i t e d i a l e c t i c a l law. That i s a l l . It i s therefore once again a pure d i s t o r t i o n of the f a c t s by Herr Duhring, when he declares t h a t the negation o f the negation has t o serve a s t he midwife t o de l ive r t h e fu ture from t h e wornb of the pas t ..."

I t i s not t he h i s t o r i c a l process which must obey the

d i a l e c t i c but t h e very opposite. Thus, h i s t o r i c a l materialism

can o f f e r no guarantees concerning the fu tu re course and form of

h i s t o r i c a l development. Instead, the theory had t o be capable of

taking i n t o account and providing an adequate explanation fo r

t h e 'forms of motiont of t he r e a l world i n order for it t o

maintain ba th its t heo re t i ca l (o r p red ic t ive) as w e l l a s

27 Karl Marx and Prederick Engels, Collected Warks, Vol. 27: Engels: 1890-95. (New York: International Publishers, 19901, p. 81

" Frederick Engels, Anti-Duhrinq: Herr Eugen Duhringrs Revolution in Science. (New York: International Publishers, 1939) , p. 147

practical (or political) significance. Stephen Dunn observed

that

It is characteristic of the Marxist theory of social evolution that it is regarded by its adherents as being at once a scientific tool, which, if correctly applied, enables the scholar to predict the course of future events, and a political tool enabling the political activist (once again provided that it is correctly applied) to influence this course. 29

And yet, in the decades after the death of Marx and Engels

and the subsequent (and erroneous) codification of their

findings as a fully completed "science of history", the

economistic, deterministic and unilinear reading of historical

materialism became the dominant, if not exclusive interpretation

of the theory.=' Stalinf s declaration, in Dialectical and

Historical Materialism, is quite paradigrnatic of the so-called

\orthodoxr interpretation of historical materialism:

The history of development of society is above al1 the history of the development of production, the history of the modes of production which succeed each other in the course of centuries, the history of the development of productive forces and people's relations of production..Hence the prime task of historical science is to study and disclose the laws

29 Stephen P. Dunn, The Fa11 and Rise of The Asiatic Mode of Production. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 19821, p. 3

30 There are numerous types and variations of unilinear models of history. An adequate discussion of these different unilinear models is beyond the scope of this thesis. As well, the historical reasons for the ascendancy of unilinear interpretations of historical materialism are too numerous and complex to adequately discuss in this thesis. One reason already alluded to in a previous chapter was that an almost completely isolated USSR, in the midst of a desperate attempt to defend itself from capitalist encirclement by building Socialism in One Country, found tremendous ideological justification and vindication for its project in a historical materialism which guaranteed the inevitable victory of socialist construction over a far more powerful-and still historically ascendant-global capitalism.

of production, the laws of development of the productive forces and of the relations of production, the laws of economic development of ~ociety.~'

One consequence, intended or otherwise, of the stress on

the unilinear and teleological interpretations of historical

materialism is the denigration of the centrality of class

struggle as a driving force in historical change. What use is

there for consciousness raising, for political agitation,

indeed, for the class struggle itself, when socialist victory is

guaranteed by theory and thus historically inevitable? This

historicai fatalism found powerful expression in Eduard

Bernstein's proclamation that "the final aim is nothing, the

movement is everything". Meszaros is one of several authors who

have pointed out-and actively criticized-the long history of the

depreciation of the 'active sider within historical materialism

and Marxism. He notes that there have been numerous 'vulgar-

Marxistr interpretations

Which tend to reduce Marx's complex dialectical explanations to some simplistic caricature, postulating a crude, immediate correspondence between deteninate changes in the material base and the mechanical emergence or modification of even the most abstract ideas ... The views of its representatives range from the fatalistic determinism of the Second International to the subjective voluntarism of Stalin and his followers, and well beyond; al1 the way down

Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism. (New York: International Publishers, 1940), pp. 29-30; The handbook Marxist Philosophy: A Popular Outline endorses a similar view: "Development of production is an objective necessity, a law of social life. The history of society is the law-governed development of social production, the necessary process of replacing one, lower mode of production by another, higher one." V. Afanasyev, Marxist Philosophy: A Popular Outline. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), p. 195

to the paradoxical voluntarism of 'structural Marxismo which manages to combine a mechanical conception of deterinination and 'homology' with a complete depreciation of the subject of socio- historical action. 32

A l 1 these interpretations clearly contradict Marx's

conception of the historical process, which had, from the very

beginning, emphasized the centrality of 'human sensuous

activityt and the active human role in the construction and

reconstruction of society and the making of history. As early as

1845, in his "Theses on Feuerbach1', Marx had stressed that al1

"social life is essentially practical. Al1 mysteries which

mislead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in

huxnan practice and in the comprehension of this practice ." 33

The mechanical and deterministic interpretation of

historical rnaterialism has persisted, and still dominates

Marxist discourse, up until the present day. Zaheer Baber noted

that "the dominant interpretation of historical materialism

continues to be one whose lineage can be traced to the Marxism

of the Second ~nternational."~~ Melotti declared that "Marx is

not a unilinearist, although it is only recently that a few

32 Istvan Meszaros, "The Nature of Historical Determination." Critique 30-31 (1998), p. 92

I3 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works (in Two Volumes) Volume II. (Moscow: Foreign Languages PubLishing House, 1949), p. 367

" Zaheer Baber, R e v i e w of The Violence of Abstraction: The Analytic Foundations of Historical Materialism, by Derek Sayer and Readings From Karl Marx, edited by Derek Sayer. In Journal of Contemporary Asia Vol. 21, No. 2 [lWl), P. 246

scholars have begun to express doubts on the matter."35 The

numerous representatives of the unilinear interpretation include

such theorists as Gerald Cohen and William K. Shaw. Both Shaw

and Cohen rely very heavily, if not almost exclusively, on the

1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political

Econorny (CPE) to develop nearly identical positions concerning

the primacy of productive forces in determining historical

change and the development of human ~ociety.~~ In Marxf s Theory

of History, Shaw "maintains that Marx perceived the productive

forces as the determining factor in historical de~elopment."~' He

emphasized the same point by adding that "Marx saw the key to

human history in the development of manr s productive forces."38

In a similar vein, Cohen declared that "history is,

fundamentally the growth of hurnan productive power, and forms of

society rise and fa11 according as they enable or impede that

gro~th."~' But whereas Cohen et al. were content to see their

35 Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), p. 1

36 Baber noted how the CPE passage "cons t i t u t e ( s ) the bedrock f o r Cohen's i n t e rp re t a t ion of h i s t o r i c a l materialism." Zaheer Baber, Review of ~he-Violence of Abstraction: The Analytic Foundations of His tor ica l Materialism, by Derek Sayer and Readings From Karl Marx, ed i t ed by Derek Sayer. In Journal of Contemporary Asia Vol. 21, No. 2 ( l g g l ) , P. 247; W i l l i a m Shaw, Marxf s Theory of History. (Stanford, Cal i fornia: Stanford University Press, 1978), pp. 55-57, 77-91, 97-103

37 W i l l i a m Shaw, Marxts Theory of History. (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1978), p. 53

38 W i l l i a m Shaw, Marxf s Theory of History. (Stanford, Cal i fornia: Stanford University Press, 1978), p. 55

l9 Gerald Allan Cohen, Karl Marxr s Theory of History: A Defence. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p. ix-x

econ&nistic or technological deterministic interpretations as

constituting the basis for a positive reconstruction of the

basic premises of historical materialism, Ernesto Laclau and

Chantal Mouffe advanced an almost similar reading of historical

materialism in order to criticize the theory as hopelessly

economistic, teleological, and indeed, a monist conception of

history. Instead of reconstruction, they argued for the outright

abandonment of Marxist theory in favor of a 'radical democratict

politics of which Marxism would f o n only a single moment of. 4 0

Zn their highly influential Heqemony and Socialist

Strategy, Laclau and Mouffe claimed that a 'monist aspirationt

is 'deeply inherentt in Marxist theoryts attempt "to capture

with its categories the essence or underlying meaning of

~istory."~' They argued that in order to achieve this predictive

capacity, Marxist theoxy had to posit 'a future movement of the

economic base whuse advent was guaranteed by Marxist science ." 4'

In other words, historical materialism had to guarantee

socialist victory. The fact that the 'revolutionf never arrived

The two authors emphatically declared that "we are now situated in a post-Mamist terrain. ft is no longer possible to maintain the conception of subjectivity and classes elaborated by Marxism, nor its vision of the historical course of capitalist development, nor, of course, the conception of communism as a transparent society from which antagonisms have disappeared." Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Heqemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. (London: Verso, 1985) , p. 4

41 Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strateqy: Towards a Radical Dentocratic Politics. (London: Verso, 1985), p. 4

'' Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Regemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Demcratic Politics. (London: Verso, 1985), p. 20

(or was ultimately distorted by Stalinisrn in the East and

subverted by the integrative power of the consumer society and

the welfare state in the West) meant that

the category of \necessityr has to be affirmed with ever increasing virulence. It is well known how 'necessity' was understood by the Second International: as a natural necessity, founded on a combination of Marxism and Darwinism. The Darwinist influence has frequently been presented as a vulgar Marxist substitute for Hegelian dialectics; but the truth is that in the orthodox conception, Hegelianism and Darwinism combined to form a hybrid capable of satisfying strategic requirements. Darwinism alone does not offer 'guarantees for the futuref, since natural selection does not operate in a direction predetermined from the beginning. Only if a Hegelian type of teleology is added to Darwinism-which is totally incompatible with it-can an evolutionary process be presented as a guarantee of future transitions. 43

Numerous authors have pointed out serious flaws and

misconceptions in Laclau and Mouffefs interpretation of Marxism,

their criticisms of some (or all?) of its central concepts, as

well as the proposed mode1 of 'radical democratic politicsf they

envision taking its place.44 Although an adequate critique of

Laclau and Mouffe is beyond the scope of this thesis, it would

be relevant, in the present context, to discuss one of these

rnisconceptions. Simply put, Laclau and Mouffe are misdirected in

accusing Marxist theory of being founded upon a "Hegelian type

" Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Heqemony and Soc ia l i s t Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Po l i t i c s . (London: Verso, 19851, p. 20

'' There is a very s izable amount o f material pertaining t o Laclau and Mouffe's p o l i t i c a l project. In the present author's opinion, Norman Geras' powerful crit ique is st i l l one of the best . Norman Geras, ' Post-Marxism?" New Left Review 163 (May-June, 1987) , 40-82

of t e l eo l agy" which s e r v e s as a "guarantee o f f u t u r e

t r a n s i t i o n s f f . The s t r e n g t h of t he Marxis t t h e o r y o f h i s t o r y has

never been based upon i t s so -ca l l ed p r e d i c t i v é poners -or i ts

a b i l i t y t o gua ran tee t h e f u t u r e cou r se of h i s t o r i c a l p r a g r e s s

i t s e l f a n d ( o t h e r t h a n i n i t s S t a l i n i z e d i n c a r n a t i o n ) has never

been p r e s e n t e d as such. The Dialectic, as Engels c l a r i f i e d t o

Duhring, i s n o t "a proof-producing" mechanism. Rather , Lukacs

observed t h a t Marxis t t h e o r y d e r i v e d i t s power fxom i t s a b i l i t y

t o g r a s p cornplex, i n t e r r e l a t e d phenomena as a c o h e r e n t and

unified t ~ t a l i t ~ . ~ ~ R e l a t i n g t h i s t o t h e q u e s t i o n of neces sa ry

h i s t o r i c a l developments, one f i n d s t h a t " t h e g o n e r a l t h e o r y o f

h i s t o r i c a l materialism r e q u i r e s o n l y t h a t t h e r e shou ld be a

s u c c e s s i o n of modes of product ion , though not n e c e s s a r i l y any

p a r t i c u l a r modes, and perhaps not i n any p a r t i c u l a r

prede termined a r d e r . "46 Hobsbawm adds t h a t even i f Marx " had been

mistaken i n h i s o b s e r v a t i o n s , o r if t h e s e had been based on

p a r t i a l a n d t h e r e f o r e mi s l ead ing in fo rma t ion , t h e g e n e r a l t heo ry

4 5 " f t is not the primacy of economic motives i n h i s t o r i c a l exphnat ion t h a t cons t i t u t e s t he decis ive difference between Marxism and bourgeois thought, but t he point of view of to ta l i ty . " Georg Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness: Studies i n Marxist Dialectics. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, l g i l ) , p. 27

46 Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations. Edited with an introduct ion by E . J . Hobsbawm. (New York: In te rna t iona l Publishers, 1964 ) , pp. 19-20

47 Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist E c o n o ~ c Formations. Edited with an introduct ion by E.J. Hobsbawm. (New York: In te rna t iona l Publishers, 1964), p. 20; Hobsbawm is echoing Lukacs' famous statement £rom History and Class Consciousness : " Orthodox Marxism, therefore, does not imply t he u n c r i t i c a l acceptance of t he resuits of Marx's

arguing that historical materialism must be understood primarily

as an analytical method for interpreting historical phenomena,

not a predictive tool that guarantees quantifiable future

results and outcomes, as the historicist interpretation advanced

by Laclau and Mouffe tends to present it as. The following

observation by Lichtheim in his essay "What is History?" reads

equally well as a critique of Laclau and Mouffe:

A t must be evident that "philosophy of history"- meaning the attempt to see world history as a whole instead of subdivided into fragments-does not necessarily imply what is called 'historicism," that is, the belief that the outcome of the process can be predetermined either in thought or in action. Such notions may indeed be derived from philosophy, but so may their opposite: the conviction that history is open-ended and undetermined. Critics of "historicism" overshoot the mark nhen they read fatalist implications into the attempt to grasp what evolutionists used to cal1 the "law of development" of history. For granted the ability to discern such a law, it might simply tell us that there is a single world-historical continuum underlying the histories of the various cultures knuwn to us; and it is in no way evident that this unitary view implies either fatalistic acceptance of a supposed cycle of growth and decay, or belief in the imminent advent of a golden age. The true fathers of the "philosophy of history", the rationalists of the eighteenth century, simply wished to affim that world history is a totality held together in the last resort by the fact that it is the history of man (sic, italics in the original) .

investigations. It is not the 'belief8 in this or that thesis, nor the exegesis of a 'sacred' book. On the contrary, orthodoxy refers exclusively to method." Georg Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1971), p. 1

48 George Lichtheim, Collected Essays. (New York: The Viking Press, 1973), pp. 403-404

With this outline of the various interpretations and

incarnations of historical materialism in mind, we can now turn

to an examination of the passage which forms the so-called

'bedrock' of the teleological, economistic and deterministic

interpretations of historical materialism.

It has already been pointed out that Marx made explicit

reference to the AMP only once in al1 of his known works.

However, it was amazingly premonitory of al1 the future

controversies surrounding the term for him to make this single,

isolated reference to the concept in his Preface to A Critique

of Political Economy (CPE preface), his first, tentative attempt

to write the work that would Later become Capital. It is

somewhat paradoxical that this particular passage, which has

been used by generations of Marxists to emphasize the

deterministic and economistic interpretations of historical

materialism, would also contain Marx's only known direct

reference to the AMP, a concept which provides a very solid

foundation for the idea that Marx conceived of historical

materialism as a multilinear and non-teleological totality and

in terms more complex and sophisticated than simply equating it

with either the unceasing growth of the productive forces or the

progressive development of class consciousness and class

struggle in history. As the intervening decades and the fullness

of t h e has demonstrated, the succinct, eloquent yet forceful

outline of the "materialist conception of history" which Marx

included in the CPE preface has come to be widely regarded-quite

often too exclusively-as the definitive, indeed, canonical

presentation of the basic premises of historical materialism.

The pertinent sections of the Preface are presented in full:

In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of developirent of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political, and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or-what is but a legal expression for the same thing-with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic-in short, ideological forms in which men becorne conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production. No social order ever perishes before al1 the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear

before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation. In broad outlines Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of production can be designated as progressive epochs in the economic formation of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production-antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, but of one arising from the social conditions of life of the individuals; at the same time the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the solution of that antagonism. This social formation brings, therefore, the prehistory of human society to a close. 4 9

A t first glance, it seems clear why the CPE preface has

been used by many Marxists (and anti-Marxists) to advance and

defend teleological, economistic and deterministic

interpretations of historical materialism. OtLeary commented

that the (CPE preface) "has generally been interpreted as

endorsing a unilinealist view of h i s t ~ r ~ . " ~ ~ Larrain noted that

in this passage, "History ... appears as a unilinear and universal

process where various socioeconomic stages progressively follow

one another with the necessity of a natural process and

inexorably lead to communism with which the 'pre-history' of

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), pp. 182-183

50 Brendan OtLeary, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Oriental Despotism, Historical Materialism and Indian Eiistory. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989), p. 172

human s o c i e t y cornes t o an end."51 What else but a u n i l i n e a r

i n t e r p r e t a t i o n could Marx have had i n mind when he d e c l a r e d "No

s o c i a l o rde r e v e r p e r i s h e s before a l 1 t h e product ive f o r c e s f o r

which t h e r e is room i n it have developed"? But i s t h i s r e a l l y

t h e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n Marx had i n mind? I t would be easy t o answer

i n t h e a f f i r m a t i v e i f it were not f o r t h e 'problematict presence

of t h e AMP i n t h e CPE preface .

The conceptual dilemma presented by t h e CPE pre face and

i t s var ious p o s s i b l e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s was s u c c i n c t l y summarized

by Brendan OOLeary a s follows:

-.it is uncer ta in whether Marx in tended h i s l i s t t o desc r ibe either t h e necessary, programmed and chronological ly ordered l i s t of modes of product ion through which a l 1 s o c i e t i e s ( o r a l t e r n a t i v e l y , humanity a s a whole) must t r a v e l ; o r t h e modes of production which have i n f a c t e x i s t e d i n world h i s t o r y , sometimes simultaneously, b u t a r e d i s t i n g u i s h a b l e from each o the r by t h e degree of economic developrnent which they f a c i l i t a t e d . '*

There are two cornpletely d i f f e r e n t b u t i n t e r r e l a t e d

u n i l i n e a r i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s which tend t o g e t c o n f l a t e d i n any

d i scuss ion of the l i s t i n g of modes o f product ion presented by

Marx i n t h e CPE pre face . Both i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s , it w i l l be

argued, are i n v a l i d a t e d and r e f u t e d by t h e e x i s t e n c e of t h e AMP.

On t h e one hand, t h e r e i s t h e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n which holds

t h a t each s e p a r a t e h i s t o r i c a l s t a g e o r mode o f product ion l i s t e d

Jorge Larrain, A Reconstruction of Historical Materialism. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986) , p. 24

52 Brendan OtLeary, The Asiat ic Mode o f Production: Oriental Despotism, Eiistorical Materialism and Indian Kistory. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell L t d , , 198 9) , p . 105

in the CPE preface had to come to an end before the next one in

line could begin. On the other hand, there is the separate

interpretation which states that each and every single nation in

the world was fated to undergo or pass through each of these

same, distinct historical stages. In other words, the first

interpretation argues that the sequence of modes of productions

presented by Marx in the Preface was a straightforward

chronological listing of the logical pattern of the progress of

history. The second interpretation universalizes these stages as

definite moments in the histories of al1 societies. Ironically,

the first interpretation forms the basis of many of the claims

commonly made by anti-Marxists that Marxist theory has somehow

been 'proven wrong' by the collapse of the USSR and the

attempted reintegration of the former Soviet states into the

world market.=' A version of the second interpretation formed the

basis for Eduard Bernstein's revisionist theory of Evolutionary

Socialism and Menshevist doctrine. It also later on became the

ideological and theoretical justification for the Stalinist

doctrines of Socialism in One Country and Revolution in Stages.

53 \Attemptedf is the key word here. The bloody and destructive process of primitive capitalist accmulation and the creation of capitalist production relations outlined by Marx in Capital and previously discussed is being attempted by a newly formed class of criminals, capitalists and ex-bureaucrats, to horribly disastrous-and largely unsuccessful-results. See Nancy Holmstrom and Richard Smith, 'The Necessity of Gangster Capitalism: Primitive Accumulation in Russia and China." Montbly Review Volume 51, Number 9 (February, 20001, 3-10.

The idea that the list of modes of production in the CPE

preface is a chxonological one is completely indefen~ible.~~ In

reviewing the position of the AMP within the list ("...In broad

outlines Asiatic, ancient, feudal, and modern bourgeois modes of

production..." ) , it becomes clear that a defender of the

chronological interpretation would be forced to maintain the

completely untenable idea that the Asiatic preceded the Ancient

mode of production. Avineri and other authors have noted the

impossibility of this cen na rio.^' It is worth pointing out that

even the Russian Maxxist George Plekhanov, who is conventionally

thought of as having envisioned historical development in

strictly unilinear terms, made the very same observation in his

Fundamental Problems of Marxisrn. Plekhanov further noted that

the two modes of production probably coexisted sirnultaneously at

some point in history-both having arisen under different

circumstances out of the disintegrarion of the clan form of

social organization (the primitive commune) :

... the logic of the economic development of China or ancient Egypt, for example, did not at al1 lead to the appearance of the antique mode of production ... (both of which) represents rather two coexisting types of economic development. The Society

s4 OtLeary pointed out that although t h i s interpretation "has been Mamist orthodoxy for much of the twentieth century" there is, at the same t h e , " a o pos i t ive warrant for t h i s interpretation i n the Preface itself." Brendan OfLeary, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Oriental Despotism, Historical Matexialism and Indian History. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989) , p. 105

55 M.C. Howard and 3.E. King, editors, The Economics of Marx: Selected Readings of Exposition and Criticism. (New York: Penguin Books Ltd . , 19761, p. 238

of antiquity took the place of the clan social organization, the latter also preceding the appearance of the oriental social system. Each of these two types of economic structure was the outcome of the growth in the productive forces within the clan organization, a process that inevitably led to the latterr s ultimate di~inte~ration. 56

Hobsbawm presented an argument sirnilar to Plekhanov's in his

introduction to Marx's Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations.

Although he admitted that the modes of production 'are

apparently presented-in the Preface to the Critique of Political

Economy, though not specifically in the Formen-as successive

historical stages", he clarified that

This is plainly untrue, for not only did the Asiatic mode of production CO-exist with al1 the rest, but there is no suggestion in the argument of the Formen, or anywhere else, that the ancient mode (of production) evolved out of it. We ought therefore to understand Marx not as referring to chronological succession, or even to the evolution of one system out of its predecessor (though this is obviously the case with capitalism and feudalism), but to evolution in a more generai sense."

Melotti pointed out that the authors who insist on

interpreting the CPE preface in a unilinear fashion "mistake the

order in which Marx lists the respective modes of production in

the quoted passage for a chronological order, whereas in fact it

56 George V. Plekhanov, Fundamental Problems of Marxism. (New York: 1 nternational Publishers, 1969) , p. 63

'' Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations. Edited with an introduction by E.J. Hobsbawm. (New York: International Publishers, 1964) , p. 36; Ëut having said al1 this in defense of a non-unilinear interpretation of the CPE preface and historical materialism, Hobsbawm plainly contradicts himself by declaring that the AMP is "..net yet a class society, or if it is a class society, then it is the most primitive form." p. 34

is a l o g i c a l order , based on t h e l e v e l of development reached by

t h e productive fo rces and r e l a t i o n s i n each particular

~ o c i e t y . " ~ ' That Marx had a l o g i c a l o rde r ing i n mind was made

e x p l i c i t l y c l e a r by Engels i n h i 3 1859 review of t h e CPE:

History moves o f t e n i n Leaps and bounds and i n a zigzag l i n e , and a s t h i s would have t o be fol lowed throughout it would mean not only t h a t a cons ide rab le amount of m a r e r i a l of s l i g h t importance would have t o be included, b u t a l s o t h a t the t r a i n of thought would f requen t ly have t u be i n t e r r u p t e d ... The logical method of approach was t h e r e f o r e t h e only s u i t a b l e one. This, however, is indeed nothing but t h e h i s t o r i c a l method, only s t r i p p e d of the h i s t o r i c a l f o m and chance occurrences, 59

The second i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , which e s s e n t i a l l y u n i v e r s a l i z e s

t h e s t ages o u t l i n e d i n t h e CPE pre face as d e f i n i t e moments i n

t h e h i s t o r i e s of a l 1 s o c i e t i e s , is equa l ly problernatic. I n t h e

f i r s t place, Marx and Engels had o f t e n c r i t i c i z e d those

p a r t i c u l a r i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s of h i s t o r i c a l mater ia l i sm which

sought t o genera l i ze t h e h i s t o r i e s of c e r t a i n nations (most

o f t en , England's) i n t o u n i v e r s a l laws of h i s t o r i c a l development

Umberto Melotti , Marx and t h e Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), pp. 14-15; Many authors have advanced s imi l a r in te rpre ta t ions . Hobsbawm asser ted t h a t t h e s tages outlined by Marx i n t h e CPE preface a r e "ana ly t ica l , though not chronolagical, stages (of ) evolution." K a r l M a m , Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations. Edited with an introduct ion by E . J . Kobsbawn. (New York: In te rna t iona l Publishers, 1964), p. 37; Mandel likewise c r i t i c i z e d t h e un i l i nea r i n t e rp re t a t i on of t h e CPE preface. Ernest Mandel, The Formation of The Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 19711, @p. 131- 132

59 Quoted i n Umberto Melotti , Marx and t h e Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd . , 1977), p. 6

applicable everywhere and at al1 times. In his criticism of

Friedrich Listt s6* econoraic theories , Marx had observed that To hold that every nation goes through this development (al1 the separate stages of economic development which England went through) inteinally would be as absurd as the idea that every nation is bound to go thxough the political development of France or the philosophical development of Germany. What the nations have done as nations, they have done for human society; their whole value consists only in the fact that each single nation has accomplished for the benefit of other nations one of the many historical aspects ... in the framework of which mankind has accomplished its development. And therefore after industry in England, politics in France and philosophy in Germany have been developed, they have been developed for the world, and their world- historic significance, as also that of these nations, has thereby corne to an end. 6L

It has already been pointed out, in the preceding chapter,

how an attempt to universalize the stages of history forced

Gadelier and other like-minded historians and theorists into a

fruitless search for a "universal" AMP (or a similarly

"universal" Feudal mode of production) in the distant past of

every nation's history. More commonly, attempts to generalize

universal stages of historical development simply led to the

abandonment of the pxoblematic AMP and the consequent over-

simplification of the historical schema. Hobsbawm observed that

since for Marx the main characteristic of the AMP was its

stolidity and resistance to historical evolution, its

List (1789-1846) was an extremely pro-capital is t German economist and nationalist.

" Christopher Bertram, "International Cornpetition in Historical Materialisni." New Left Review 183 (Sept .-Oct., 19901, p. 117

elidnation from the list of necessary, universal stages led to

"a simpler scheine which lends itself more readily to universal

and unilinear interpretation~."~~ Likewise, it has also been

noted how this formulation, by necessity and in accordance with

the order outlined in the CPE preface, relegated the AMP to the

stage marking the emergence of humanity from the primitive

commune ta the very first class society. This theoretical

maneuver, which pushed the existence of the AMP back in tirne,

proved politically expedient for the Comintern theorists in

their battles against the Trotskyists and AMP defenders by

making it easier to assert that it was Feudalism, and not the

AMP or merchant capitalist which had to be eliminated from

nations such as China. A very compelling argument (which had

already been alluded to previously) against the second

interpretation of the CPE preface is that Marx and Engels

repeatedly emphasized the point that the AMP existed alrnost

right up until the time that they began commenting on Oriental

af fairs in the middle of the 1gth ~entur~.~' It has already been

62 Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations. Edited with an int roduct ion by E.J. Hobsbawm. (New York: In te rna t iona l Publishers, 19641, p. 61

This was a point Marx and Engels a s se r t ed i n numerous instances . In h i s very f i r s t public commentary on India, Marx had declared t h a t "Howeoe~ changing the p o l i t i c a l aspect of India 's past must appear, its soc i a l condition has rma ined unal tered since its remotest an t iqu i ty , until t h e first dectnnium of t h e nineteenth century." Karl Marx, Surveys from Exile: P o l i t i c a l Writinqs: Volume2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics , 1992), p. 304; In a letter t o Engels on June 1 4 , 1853, he observed how "these i d y l l i c republ ics , s t i l l e x i s t i n a fairly per fecr f o m i n t h e North-western parts of India which have only recently f a l l e n i n t o Enqlish hands."

noted how both authors many times asserted that it was the

massive expansion of capitalist production relations in the

1800's-not Feudalism centuries earlier-which finally destroyed

the AMP in such nations as India and China. The fact that these

nations-as well as several others-made the (forced) leap past

Feudalism and straight into capitalism also serves to demolish

the myth of the universality of historical stages. 64

Karl Marx, and Frederick Engels, The Selected Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: 1846-1895. Translated by Dona Torr. (New York: In te rna t iona l Publishers, 1942), p. 70; Marx a l s o pointed out, i n t he Grundrisse, t ha t "The Asiatic form necessar i ly hangs on most tenaciously and f o r t h e longest time." Karl Marx, Grundrisse (Foundations of t h e Cr i t ique of P o l i t i c a l Economy). Translated by Martin Nicolaus. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973), p. 486; He a l so observed, i n Volume 1 of Capi ta l , " t h a t communal property i n i t s natural , spontaneous fom..is the pr imit ive form t h a t w e can prove t o have ex is ted among Romans, Teutons and Cel ts , and which indeed s t i l l e x i s t s t o t h i s day i n India..!' and again made reference t o "those small and extremely ancient Indian communities.,which continue t o e x i s t t o t h i s day,!, Karl Marx, Capi ta l : A Crit ique of P o l i t i c a l Economy, Volume 1. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and t r ans l a t ed by Ben Fowkes. (New - York: Vintage Books, 1976), pp. 171 and 477, respect ively; Engels l ikewise pointed out , i n Anti-Duhrinq, t h a t "The o l d pr imit ive communities ...( remained) i n exis tence f o r thousands of years-as i n India and among t h e Slavs up t o the present day-before in te rcourse with t he outs ide world ( l e d t o t h e i r destruct ion)" and a l s o t h a t " fo r thousands of years Oriental depotism (sic) and the changing r u l e of conquering nomad peoples were unable t o change t h i s o ld form of commune..!' - - Frederick Engels, Anti-Duhring: H& Eugen Duhringrs Revolution i n Science. (New York: In te rna t iona l Publishers, 1939), pp. 165 and 180, respectively; I n "On Socia l Relations i n Russia", which was published i n 1875, ~ n g e l s s t i l l maintained t h a t " i n India a whole series of forms of communal property has been i n exis tence down t o the present t i m e . " Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works [ i n Two Volumes) Volume 11. (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 19491, p. 52

64 It was Trotsky who b r i l l i a n t l y noted t h a t t h i s \skipping of stages' and the 'zigzag motion of h i s t o r i c a l development' was nothing but the universal (or normal) form o f motion of capi ta l ism i n pa r t i cu l a r , and h i s t o r i c a l development i n general, i n t h e age of Imperialism. H e went on t o deduce t h e co r r ec t revolut ionary s t r a t e g y from these observations through his formulations of the Law o f Uneven and Combined Development and t h e Theory of Permanent Revolution, respect ively.

The AMP then, for both Marx and Engels, was not just some

long finished stage marking the beginnings of civilization. It

was not simply a 'historical accidentf that fell outside the

explanatory parameters of a neat, tidy and simplistic story of

human progress and teleological history. On the contrary, this

social formation testifies to the complexities, the variations,

the complications, in mm, to the m u l t i l i n e a r character of real

history and also offers proof-as Althusser eloquently stated in

"Contradiction and 0verdetermination"-that the 'exceptional' is

always the rule in history and its forms of motion. In what

amounts to an affirmation of Engelsf observation concerning the

'leaps and boundst and 'zigzagf motion of the actual historical

process, Draper emphasized that although

It is unquestionable that Marx conceived the 'progressive" epochs (stages or types) within the framework of a broad time series ... it is equally clear that the time relationships involved no rigid linear sequence. On the contrary, there was plenty of room (as always in history) for overlapping forms, fossil leftovers, lateral diffusion of cultures, reciprocal influences, and a host of other complications in the ordinary pattern of historical inquiry. The idea that Marx meant that each 'progressive" epoch had to corne to an end before the next in line of destiny could begin, or that everywhere the epochs goosestepped in fixed sequence like a parade, is simply grotesque. 65

A more accurate representation of historical materialism

would necessarily have to reflect most, if not all, the

'zigzagsr , 'overlapping forms' , 'iossil leftovers and

'complicationst of history. In this respect, the mode1 of

historical materialisrn presented by Melotti (Figure 1) in his

Marx and the Third World, serves as an excellent starting point

for any atternpt at reconceptualizing, rehabilitating and

revising historical materialisrn. 6"' Leaxy has called Melotti* s

model "the best defence of a multilinealist interpretation of

historicai materiali~m."~' One of the many strengths of this

interpretation is that it gives due consideration to many of the

complexities of human history and progress that have been

discussed so far in this thesis while allowing the reader to

form an understanding of historical materiaiism as being more

open-ended, and less teleological, than conventional unilinear

approaches would admit to.

65 Hal Draper, Karl Marxt s Theory of Revolutian, Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), p. 539

66 It must be reiterated that Melottir s reconstruction of historical materialism is merely a starting point for further investigation and reconstruction. The author's model, while clearly superior to unilinearist interpretations, poses new conceptual problems and leaves many questions unanswered. This is not meant as a criticism of Melotti's reconstruction, but rather, as an acknowledgment that a truly dialectical theory of history can never definitively daim to 'answer al1 the questions' or achieve a fully completed final form. Unfortunately, an adequate discussion of these problems and questions is beyond the scope of the present work.

Brendan OrLeary, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Oriental Despotism, Historical Materialism and Indian Ristory. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989), p. 173; OrLeary also discusses some of the strengths and weaknesscs of Melotti's multilinear mode1 in his book (pp. 173-177)

1 -*iodiy 63

Figure 1 Melottirs multilinear model of historical materialism

1 would like to conclude this chapter with some comments

on a number of observations regarding the multilinear model of

historical materialism advanced by OrLeary in his excellent book

on the AM P.^' In a discussion of some of the conceptual problems

associated with multilinearisrn, O'Leary observed that

..&y multilineal historical materialism poses new problems and trivializes others ...The multilineal schema is also so open to revision as to remove its Marxist distinctiveness. A theory apparently compatible with every description of historical diversity explains nothing. Mulrilineal schemas may be superficially 'empirical' but they are philosophically banal, So far, they remove necessity from Marx's theory of history, converting it into

From Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press Ltd-, 19771, p . 26

69 Brendan OtLeary, The Asia t ic Mode of Production: Or ien ta l Despotism, His tor ica l Materialism and Indian History. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basi l Blackwell Ltd., 1989)

redescription rather than explanation. Thereby historical materialism ceases ta be a philosophy of histury which tells why what has happened did happen, or which can be extrapolated to what will happen. Multilinealism also puts in jeopardy the Marxist believerts faith about the unification of humanity under some putative advanced cornmunism. If the world has been 'many' until now, why must it become 'onef in the future?70

Without reading too much into them, O'Learyts statements

are highly symptomtic of the lingering fear, among certain

Marxists, of finally having to abandon the very comfortable and

highly reassuring historical schematic presented by unilinear

interpretations of historical materialism. This is not entirely

surprising, since the widespread propagation of, and belief in,

these interpretations played a significant, and not completely

neqative, ideological role in the history of the development of

revolutionary Marxism.

On the one hand, unilinearism clearly played a largely

destructive role in terms of the formation of revolutionary

theory and strategy (the example of the Chinese revolution of

1926-27 was discussed previously). On the other, it cannot

easily be estimated how many thousands, or even millions, of

workers and revolutionaries were brought over to the camps of

the defomed Marxism of the Second and Third Internationals, at

least in part due to the perception that they were somehow

situated on the "correct side of history", awaiting a historical

Brendan OrLeary, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Oriental Despotisrn, Bistorical Materialism and Indian History. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1989), p. 175

conclus ion which was des t ined t o have a happy ending a s

c e r t a i n l y a s t h e S t a l i n i s t n igh t would e v e n t u a l l y become day. In

1926, i n a speech defending Socia l i sm i n One Country, S t a l i n

asked i f t h e USSR could

remain t h e mighty cen t re of a t t r a c t i o n f o r t h e workers of a l 1 coun t r i e s t h a t i t undoubtedly i s now, i f it i s incapable of achieving v i c t o r y a t home over t h e c a p i t a l i s t elements i n Our economy, t h e v i c t o r y o f s o c i a l i s t const ruct ion? 1 t h i n k not . But does it not fo l low from t h i s t h a t d i s b e l i e f i n t h e v i c t o r y o f s o c i a l i s t const ruct ion, t h e d isseminat ion of such d i s b e l i e f , w i l l l e a d t o Our country being d i s c r e d i t e d a s t h e base of t h e world r e v o l ~ t i o n ? ' ~

I t seems clear t h a t a t l e a s t p a r t o f t h e reason t h a t the

USSR remained a "mighty cen t re of a t t r a c t i o n f o r t h e workers of

countr ies" f o r a good p a r t of t h e 20'" cen tu ry was p r e c i s e l y

t h e idea of h i s t o r i c a l i n e v i t a b i l i t y t h a t a S t a l i n i s t

' i n t e r p r e t a t i o n ' of Marxist theory propagated. A s twis ted ,

deformed and perver ted S ta l in i sm became i n p r a c t i c e , it could,

and did, seek refuge i n t h e idea t h a t t h e USSR, and t h e

i n t e r n a t i o n a l communist movement, was on t h e winning side of

what I s a a c Deutscher once c a l l e d " t h e g r e a t contes t" . Despite

a l 1 t h e t r i a l s and t r i b u l a t i o n s it sub jec ted t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l

working class t o , S ta l in i sm remained-in t h e eyes o f genera t ions

o f workers, r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s and i n t e l l e c t u a l s - t h e only

h i s t o r i c a l r o u t e beyond cap i t a l i sm. 1 argue t h a t a c e r t a i n

measure of a continued adherence t o t h i s ( f o r l a c k of a b e t t e s

'' Michael Lowy, The Po l i t i c s of Combined and Uneven Development: The Theory of Permanent Revolution. (London: Verso, 1981), p. 71

term) millenarian outlook informs OrLeary's criticisms of

multilinearism.

In the first place, bis observation that "A theory

apparently compatible with every description of historical

diversity explains nothing" is a red herring and cannot be taken

seriously. It is a criticism which is identical both to the

central critique Karl Popper leveled against historical

materialism in The Poverty of Historicism as well as a key

argument used by Laclau and Mouffe against Marxist theory in

their Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. A simple (but by no means

the only) answer to this is that as a theory of history,

historical materialism never aspired (or managed) to become such

a totalizing theory capable of 'explaining everythingt. One

could potentially make this argument even (especially!) for the

Stalinized, 'orthodoxf Marxism of the 2nd International-which,

on the contrary, was based upon a reductionist and economistic

analysis. It is also quite puzzling that OtLeary mourns the

removal of necessity £rom historical materialism, since it is

this very same historical necessity masquerading as historical

explanation which served, in part, as 'dialectical crutchest for

the crimes and excesses of ~talinism. l2

" Every £am forcibly collectivized, ever old guard Bolshevik shat was a step towards the achievement of a utopia which was always being pushed farther and farther into the distant future. Thus, the bureaucratic apparatus of the USSR could always fa11 back on the excuse that historical necessity made them commit their assorted crimes, al1 for the sake of advancing the eternal class struggle. One is reminded of Edward Thompson's satire of Althusser's structural

Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, O'Leary declares that

multilinearism "puts in jeopardy the Marxist believerOs faith

about the unification of humanity". This particular comment goes

right to the core of the matter: the ideological role that the

unilinear mode1 of historical materialism once played. It is

true that unlike unilinearism, multilinear theories of history

offer no guarantees of a future unification of history. But as

we have stated many times in this thesis, this was never the

strength of historical materialism in the first place. It should

not be interpreted as a guarantor of future results. We have

pointed out that historical materialism is merely the

apprehension in thought of a real historical process existing

independently of that thought. Ultimately, it is not historical

materialism (however we decide to interpret this) but the forms

of motion of the real world itself which will (or will not)

accomplish the unification of humanity. In other words, it is

the process of capitalist Imperialism (described at the end of

Chapter 1) which will, in the last instance, accomplish what

O' Leary mistakenly attributes to (unilinear) theory. In

ascribing to theory a power which it never posse~sed'~, OrLeary

commits the very same error that Karl Popper committed in

accusing Marxisrn of an adherence to inexorable and totalizing

(he uses the term \holistf) historical laws which in turn

Marxism: "However many the Emperor slew/ The scientific historianl (While taking note of contradiction)/ Affinns productive forces grew."

allowed f o r t h e p o s s i b i l i t y of t o t a l i t a r i a n con t ra1 over

s o c i e t y . Herbert Marcuse's r e p l y t o Popper i s q u i t e i n s t r u c t i v e :

Contemporary s o c i e t y is i n c r e a s i n g l y func t ion ing as a r a t i o n a l whole which over r ides t h e l i f e of i t s p a r t s , progresses through planned waste and d e s t r u c t i o n , and advances with the irresistible force of nature-as i f governed by inexorable laws. I n s i s t e n c e on t h e s e i r r a t i o n a l a s p e c t s is not b e t r a y a l o f t h e l i b e r a l i s t i c t r a d i t i o n , b u t t h e a t tempt t o recapture it. The 'holisml which h a s become x e a l i t y must be met by a ' h o l i s t ' critique of t h i s r e a l i t y . 74

'' One wonders i f OPLeary has ever caught a un i l inear theory of h is tory i n t h e a c t of unifying humanity.

'4 Herbert Marcuse, " K a r l Popper and the Problem of Bis tor ica l Laws." i n Studies i n C r i t i c a l Philosophy. (Boston: Beacon Press, 19731, p. 208

Conclusion

This thesis has demonstrated that historical materialism

can only be properly interpreted as a rnultilinear theory of

history. The existence of the AMP within Marxism is a powerful

confirmation and validation of this assessment.

The Asiatic Mode of Production is a clearly defined and

highly developed concept which formed an integral component of

the multilinear rnodel of historical rnaterialism originally

developed, and consistently elaborated upon, by both Marx and

Engels. Despite attempts by later Marxists to emphasize the

'peripheral' or 'marginalr character of its position within

historical materialism, this thesis has presented proof that the

AMP played a critical, if not central, role in both Marx and

Engels' analysis of pre-capitalist economic formations, as well

as the formation of their theories regarding social evolution

and historical progress.

Despite numerous attempts by later Marxists to postulate a

'divergencer in the thinking of the two theorists, it is clear

that both authors repeatedly and consistently affirmed the

validity of the AMP, as well as a multilinear conception of the

historical process, to the very end. On the one hand, it is

sufficiently clear that the two authors examined these archaic

social formations, not due to any intrinsic interest they may

have held for these; but rather, with the intended goal of

discovering why capitalism failed t a develop elsewhere in the

world beyond Europe. In short, the AMP was not the main object

of knowledge for the investigations of either Marx or Engels. On

the other hand, it has been demonstrated by this thesis that in

spite of the secondary nature of the attention given by the two

authors to it, the AMP is sufficiently theorized and

sufficiently developed in the works of both authors (including

and especially their so-called 'mature' works) as to demolish

the idea that the AMP was merely an insignificant afterthought

that was soon abandoned in the course of their intellectual and

theoretical developrnent. More importantly, this thesis has shown

that the AMP is sufficiently developed as to qualify as a 'real

concept' with a 'real theoretical statusr within Marxist theory

and deserves to be 'rehabilitatedt as a central concept in a

revised, multilinear historical materialism. Despite this, the

AMP was latex 'abandoned', and its very existence denied, by

generations of Marxists.

There were many historical reasons that led to the

abandonment of the AMP, several of which have been discussed at

length in this thesis: the need to justify the construction of

Socialism in One Country in the Soviet Union, factional and

tactical disputes within the International Conununist Movements

(in both the Second and Third Internationals) which in turn

translated inta disastrous political strategy (such as the

Second Chinese Revolution of 1926), etc. Overriding al1 these,

however, were the political, military and ideological

requirements of the USSR, requirements which sought

justification in a unilinear mode1 of history which would serve

as the eventual guarantor of socialist victory over a still

historically ascendant global capitalism.

Although it is quite likely that unilinear interpretations

of historical materialism would have certainly arose, with or

without the existence of the AMP, the premature \deathr of the

latter was certainly a major contributing factor, both to the

rise, and to the longevity, of such interpretations.

In short, the prevalence of a unilinear historical materialism

in the international communist movement, and the disappearance

of the AMP from the history books were both completely

interrelated. One cannot be fully explained without the other.

However, it has also been demonstrated that unilinear

interpretations of historical materialism do not do justice to

the variegated nature of human society and compresses the

richness of historical experience into specific and falsely

universalized moments. More irnportantly, a unilinear

interpretation endows historical materialism with a historical

fatalism which in turn, unfairly grants the theory immense

prestige, and opprobrium, as a guarantor of future historical

developments.

An acknowledgment of the multilinear nature of historical

materialism leads to a reaffirmation of the open-ended nature of

human history and the importance of class struggle in

determining its outcome. Indeed, one of the main strengths of a

multilinear historical materialism is the elimination of

historical fatalism from Marxist theory and political quietism

from its revolutionary strategy. A reaffirmation that Marxist

theory offers no guarantees regarding the future course and

progress of societies goes hand in hand with the assertion that

the establishment of socialist relations of production on a

global scale will necessarily have to be a consciously organized

and carefully planned endeavor carried out by a sufficient

majority of humanity. More than eighty years ago, Rosa Luxemburg

had already stressed that, despite the global crisis facing

capitalism, an advance to socialism was nothing more than a

historical possibility offered to the proletariat. It could

cease hold of the opportunity-or just as easily cause the common

ruin of the contending classes.

the final victory of the socialist proletariat ... will never be accomplished, if the burning spark of the conscious will of the masses does not spring from the material conditions that have been built up by past development. Socialism will not fa11 as manna from heaven. It can only be won by a long chain of powerful struggles, in which the proletariat, under the leadership of the Social Democracy, will learn to take hold of the rudder of society to become instead of the powerless victim of history, its conscious guide. Friedrich Engels once said: 'Capitalist society faces a dilema, either an advance to socialism or a reversion to barbarisrnt .'

' Quoted i n "Barbarism and the Collapse of Capitalism," Norman Geras, the Laqacy of Rosa Luxemburq. (London: New L e f t Books, 19761, p . 21

Zt is only in finally abandoning antiquated and outdated

dogmas that Marxism might be able to prove itself useful to a

new, younger generation of militant and determined radicals who

(as the anti-WTO protests in Seattle powerfully demonstrated)

are once again beginning the long, slow process of awakening

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