Marxim Today II

8/11/2019 Marxim Today II

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S t a g e s i n S o c i a l D e v e l o p m e n t

Joan Simon

(Secretary, History Group of the Communist Party)

W

HY is the establishment of stages in

socia l development important? Perhaps

this general question should be put before

surveying the recent discussion in

Marxism Today

and summarising the day 's debate on the subject

organised by the edi tor ia l board and the History

Group of the Communist Party, a t Marx House on

March 18th last .

What i s a t i ssue here i s both the nature and suc

cession of different forms of society, including ways

in which the t ransi t ion from one to another takes

placein other words, the movement and di rec t ion

of human history. This is, of course, a very large

subject indeed, and the historical materialist approach

can hardly be summarised in a sentence . But Lenin,

as usual, managed briefly to express the essence of

the mat ter . Pre-Marxist histor iography,

at best provided an accumulation of raw facts,

collected at random, and a depiction of certain sides

of the historical process. By examining theensemble

of all the opposing tendencies, by reducing them to

precisely definable conditions of life and production

of the various classes of society, by discarding sub

jectivism and arbitrariness in the choice of various

'leading' ideas or in their interpretation, and by

disclosing that all ideas and all the various tenden

cies, without exception, have their roots in the

condition of the material forces of production,

Marxism points the way to an all-embracing and

comprehensive study of the process of the rise,

development, and decline of social-economic

formations (The Teachings of Karl M arx, Little

Lenin Library, p. 24).

Marx and Engels themselves consistent ly empha

sised that historical materialism is a scientific ap

proach to generalisation from the facts. They were,

therefore, well aware of the immense amount of

historical research needed before the picture of

successive social formations could be fil led out.

Our conception of history is, above all , a guide to

study, not a lever for construction after the manner

of the Heg elians , wro te Engels in a letter in 1890.

All history must be studied afresh, the conditions

of existence of the different formations of society

must be individually examined before the attempt

is made to deduce from them the political, civil-

legal, aesthetic, philosophic, religious etc. notions

corresponding to them. Only a little has been done

here up to now because only a few people have got

down to it seriously {Selected Correspondence,

p.473).

During the present century, par t icular ly in recent

decades, there has been a wide development of

histor ica l research, ranging from anthropological

and archaeological studies to the present day. In

part icular , much mater ia l has been brought to l ight

by histor ians working under new condi t ions in the

U.S.S.R. , China , eastern Europe, India , Afr ica ,

among them a great ly increased number of Marxist

historians. The close examination of diflferent forms

of society, the study of branches of history afresh,

has ra ised new quest ions about the process of r i se ,

development and decline of societies in history; in

particular, about the successive stages in this process

in the history of class society, after th e disin tegratio n

of pr imi t ive communal ism.

This succession has usually been defined in terms

of a sentence taken from Marx's preface to the

Critique of Political Economy (1859) in which he

ends an exposition of the historical materialist

approach wi th the words :

In broad outline we can designate the Asiatic,

the ancient, the feudal and the modern bourgeois

methods (i.e. modes) of production as so many

epochs in the progress of the economic formation of

society. The bourgeois relations of production are

the last antagonistic form of the social process of

produ ction (Kerr ed. p. 13).

The category As ia t ic suggests a regional form,

thoug h one of major importance , so i t i s by no m eans

clear that Marx is here designating successive stages

to be found universally. Nevertheless, this is the

impression of the Marxist viewpoint given in the

Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism (1961) sum

marised in the phra se: Ma nkin d as a whole has

passed through four formations^primitive-com

mu nal, slave, feudal and capitaMst (p. 154). M arx 's

Asia t ic mod e is , however , omit ted here . (This,

i t may be note d, was also the case in theShort History

of the

C P S U

(1939) where, in the section on

historical materialism, the examples cited are that

from disintegra t ing pr imi t ive communal ism slavery

(the ancie nt mod e ) emerged, that feudalism is

replaced by capitalism (p. 110).)

The As iat i c M ode

Robin Jardine drew attention to this divergence

in the contr ibut ion that opened the discussion in

these pages (July 1961), when he also raised the

quest ion as to whether the ancient mo de has been


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MARXISM TODAY, JUNE 1962

a universal stage in the history of socio-economic

development ; whether , for instance , there was an

epoch of slavery in India and China . Discussion

has tended to centre around these quest ions. One

contr ibutor remained unconvinced that there was

any point at issue, dismissing all queries as fanciful

specu lations, but his firm reassertion of the M arx ist

view overcame the divergence between Marxist

sources only by incorrectly equat ing Ma rx 's Asia t ic

m od e wi th the stage of barbarism preceding c lass

society (Sid Douglas, December 1961). On the other

han d. Professor PuUey bank, professor of Chinese

at Cambridge, not ing that Chinese and Japanese

Marxist histor ians have dropp ed the Asia t ic mo de ,

suggested that whether or not there have been uni

versa l s tages i s a pseu do-p roblem ; implying that

the very large questions involved in drawing com

parisons and connect ions between the development

of different civilisations cann ot usefully be ap proa che d

in this way. All this raises important points.

It would probably be true to say that, so far as the

majority of Marxist historians are concerned, the

Asia t ic mod e has long since tac it ly dropp ed ou t

of use . M ore recently the ancie nt m od e or

slavery has come openly into question. At the

International Congress of Historical Sciences held

at Stockholm in 1960, Academician Zhukov made

clear that Marxist historians in the Soviet Union no

longer regard slavery as a universal stage; for in

stance, i t has not been found to have been the pre

dominant mode of product ion in Russia a t any t ime,

nor among the Germanic peoples. Was the f i rst

civilisation to emerge in India, in the Indus river

valley (2500-1500 B .C.) a slave society? De v Raj

Chanana , i n Slavery in Ancient India (1960), only

advances wi th a cer ta in amo unt of reserve the

hypo thesis tha t slave labou r could have existed

both in the country and towns of the Indus civilisa

tion . Evidence from literary sources bears witness to

various forms of slavery in India at later periods, but

not, he suggests, to an epoch of slavery comparable

with that of the classical period in Greece or Rome.

In general, historians have found forms of chattel

slavery nearly everywhere in pre-capitalist societies,

but the existence of slaves by no means implies that

slavery was the predominant mode of product ion.

There was, of course, a marked degree of slavery in

America in the modern age , but this does not deter

mine classification as a slave society since the pre

dominant product ive re la t ions were developing

capi ta l i st re la t ions. A similar posi t ion probably

existed in many parts of the world in antiquity, with

slaves in domest ic work, agricul ture , perhaps even

craf ts , wi thin the framework of other predominat ing

product ive re la t ions. There is no evidence that the

peoples of Afr ica passed through an epoch of

slavery. On the other hand, Chinese Marxist histor i

ans agreed that Ch ina has gone throug h an epoch

of slavery and that the remains of slavery lasted for

a long tim e after the collapse of slave so cie ty ;

though i t would seem that there i s wide disagree

ment on the dat ing of this epoch, some placing i t

before the eleventh century B.C., others putting its

lower limit in the period 770-206 B.C., and a third

view holding that i t lasted up to and during the Wei

period, A.D. 220-265.^

What does all this add up to The Asia t i c m od e

has dropped out , and only in cer ta in areas has

slavery been shown to be important enough to form

the basis of the economy. There remains, then, the

basic succession of social-economic formations:

pr imi t ive communal ism feudal ism capi ta lism. In

pract ice this means that feudal ism , having become

a sort of residuary legatee, now stretches over a vast

expansefrom primit ive socie t ies up to the t r iumph

of capitalism, which in some countries is in this

century, and from China to West Afr ica , perhaps

even to Mexico. In addition, where investigations of

primitive societies have indicated the existence of a

social division of labour the feudal stage has been

pushed back into what had previously been regarded

as the pr imi t ive com mu nal stage .

Obviously a socio-economic stage which covers

both Ruanda-Urundi today and France in 1788,

both C hina in 1900 and N orm an E ngland, i s in

danger of losing any kind of specific character l ikely

to assist analysis; rather, analysis can only remain

extremely general unless some sub-divisions are

arrived at. This is the problem that has, as i t were,

come into being, no one having deliberately set out

to extend feudal ism . I t is a problem w hich has

not hitherto been systematically tackled by Marxists

but is now a subject for discussion among historians

in many different countries. This was the main

question discussed at the meeting held on Ma rch 18th.

Marx's Approach

Prel iminary mater ia l prepared by members of the

History Group, besides making some of the points

a l ready made, a lso out l ined in more deta i l Marx 's

own approach, which was anything but schemat ic

^

An exception is N ambood iripad, The National

Question in Kerala(1952), where an evolution of feudalism

from the Asiatic mo de is suggested.

^

These points are taken from an article summarising

recent discussions published in Collectionfor D iscussion

ofthe Periodisation of ncient Chinese History(1957, in

Chinese), and translated into German in the G.D.R.

journal, Zeitschrift filr Geschichtswissenschaft(1962).

Professor PuUeybank, noting the complexities involved

in assessing slavery in China, adds that Japanese Marxist

historians have concluded that there was an epoch of

slavery in Japa n durin g the millennium following the

founding of the Ch'in emp ire in 221 B.C. and discerned

the transition to feudalism during the Sung period from

A.D. 960.


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MARXISM TODAY JUNE 1962

185

and dogmatic. The phrase quoted from the preface

of the Critique should, for instance, be put in

context if i t is to be properly understood. In the

int roduct ion to this work (unpubl ished during his

lifetime) Marx does this, in the course of arguing

against the bourgeois pol i t ica l economists who

assume that capitalist productive relations are

eternal.

Whenever . . . we speak of production, we always

have in mind production at a certain stage of social

development. Hence, it might seem that in order to

speak of production at all, we must either trace the

historical process of development through its various

phases, or declare at the outset that we are dealing

with a certain historical period, as e.g. with modern

capitalistic p roduction .

Nevertheless, Marx continues, certain elements in

product ion are common to a l l epochs, in that no

production is conceivable without them; there is

also, of course, a general uniformity in conditions

of pro duc tion in so far as the subject, ma nk ind,

and the object, nature, remain the same . All stages

of produ ct ion, therefore , have cer ta in landma rks in

common , comm on purposes . Wha t marks the

specific characteristics of a particu lar stage are the

points of departure from the genera l and common

(pp. 268-269). After developing these points, Marx

concludes:

Bourgeois society is but a form resulting from

the development of antagonistic elements, some

relations belonging to earlier forms of society are

frequently to be found in it but in a crippled state

or as a travesty of their former self as e.g. communal

property. . . . The last form always considers its

predecessors as stages leading up to itself and per

ceives them always one-sidedly, since it is very

seldom and only under certain conditions th.it it is

capable of self-criticism. . . . Bourgeois political

economy first came to understand the feudal, the

ancient and the oriental societies when self-criticism

of bourgeo is society had comme nced (p. 301).

In the published preface Marx turns this analysis

rou nd of give the same stages preceding the dev eloped

form of capitalism he is analysing du e weight in their

own right. But that he himself did not regard this as

a copmlete picture is made clear by a comment in

the text of the Critique:

A closer study of the Asiatic, especially of Indian

forms of communal ownership, would show how

from the different forms of primitive communism

different forms of dissolution . . . developed

(p .29 n).

This comment is probably related to other notes

Marx made when preparing this work (which were

publ ished in German in 1939 but have not yet been

transla ted). Here he tentatively distinguishes v arieties

of the basic form of economy emerging from different

forms of communal or tribal organisatione.g., in

addition to the Asiatic (or oriental), the ancient (or

slave), the Germanic, and possibly the Slavonic

each tending to produce a somewhat different form

of the social division of labour: e.g., the separation

of town and country in the ancient mod e , the

failure to separate agriculture and crafts in the

Indian village community leading to a closed circuit

and inabili ty to draw off the surplus except for

marginal purposes. It was this last point, the specific

nat ure of wh at he called the village system

within Asiatic empires that underlay Marx's differen

t ia t ion of the Asia t ic mo de .

Present t rends in Marxist histor iography, there

fore , do not run counter to Marx but ra ther pursue

lines upon which he himself had begun to embark.

If there have been any un -M arxis t trends these lie in a

too rigid and dogmatic use of a single sentence as

comprising the whole of the Marxist approach.

Earlier Forms

In this connection it was underlined in discussion

that one of the main dangers, when a t tempt ing to

assess earlier forms of social development, is to look

at them through the eyes of the present, in terms of

conditions proper to the class struggle in capitalist

society and the nature of the transition to socialism.

As Marx and Engels always stressed, i t is only in the

modern capitalist era that the class struggle is nar

rowed down to the point where two great classes

confront each other; capi ta l i st product ive re la t ions

must be overthrown before socialist relations can be

established. Before this epoch, however, there are

often a variety of classes and class antagonisms on

the basis of a variety of forms of ownership and

exploi ta t ion, and new product ive re la t ions can grow

within the old framework; i .e., capitalist relations of

production develop within feudal society, which

implies in turn a gradual and perhaps very lengthy

disintegration of feudalism.

It is, then, obviously incorrect to see the transition

from one earlier stage of social development to

another in terms of a straightforward clash in which

the old ruling class is ousted by a new ruling class,

already fully fledged, which forthwith assumes

undisputed control of the sta te . There are no

historical grounds for conceiving of slave-owners

ousted in straight conflict with feudal lords, nor for

that matter feudal lords deposed single-handed by

the urban bourgeoisie . The same considera t ions

extend to the realm of ideology. To regard new ideas

which come to the forefront and play an important

role as essentially the ideology of the rising exploiting

class is to fly in the face of the historical record. In

sixteenth-century Europe, for instance , Protestant

ideas were primarily the property of the old exploited

class,

the peasantry and poorer ar t i sans, and came

to the forefront as an expression of the tension of

the times and general sharpening of various aspects


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of class Struggle. Only as the new exploiting class

takes form and takes over does this ideology become

transformed into a new ruling ideology. (There is a

parallel in the early history of Christianity in the

ancient world.)

The bourgeois revolut ion in England may serve

as an example . I f the work of Maurice Dobb and

Christopher Hi l l has shown anything i t i s the com

plexity of the developments leading up to this, in

part icular , changing product ive re la t ions and c lass-

differentiation, but also the role of the state and the

development and interplay of religious ideas. There

had been trade and towns for centuries (as of course

al ready in the ancient world) but though merchant

wealth and influence grew, i t did not necessarily find

an out le t in indust ry; the merchant c lass was, to a

considerable extent, parasitic on the ruling order and

feudal society remained rooted in the land. It was, in

fact, chang ing re la t ions of product ion in agriculture,

spreading through the countryside , tha t were deci

sive, that determined the possibili ty of a break

through to which the towns only contr ibuted; whi le

so far as indust ry was concerned i t was the upthrust

of the pet ty commodi ty producer that counted most

in the development of capitalist relationswhat

Marx cal led the rea l ly revolut ionary way . Feud al

powers had , to a considerable extent , become c entra l

ised in the sta te , the mo narchy, w hich had taken over

many of the functions of the old feudal ruling class;

hence the revolut ion was di rec ted against the mon

archy and the chief of these powers curbed or

removed, clearing the way for the development of

capi ta li st product ive re la t ions. But there remained a

long format ive period before the indust r ia l bour

geoisie came to maturi ty and to power.

Productive Relations

All this helps to get earlier stages of class society

into perspective. Then productive relations in agri

culture were also decisive, towns and trade usually

marginal ( trading nations, properly so called, exist

in the ancient world only in i ts interstices . Capital,

I, 51), and the role of centralised states in maintain

ing old forms of social organisation often important.

A variety of forms of ownership and exploitation

often coexisted. How, in these circumstances, can the

stage of socio-economic development be defined?

The key, as Robert Browning st ressed (Marxism

Today,

October 1961) i s not the proport ion of the

popula t ion engaged in part icular branches of pro

duct ion, but ra ther the produc tive relations in those

branches of production where high surplus values are

produced .

Thi s marks the

predominant

form of

product ion which largely determines the whole

comp lex of social institu tion s; i t is the basis on w hich

there arises a whole superstructure of polit ical, legal

and cul tura l forms.

The way in which the surplus is

appropriated has the c losest bearing on the nature

and rate of social development.

Technological advance is , of course , of pr imary

importance . But the existence of cer ta in tools does

not necessarily bear witness to a particular level of

socia l organisa t ion, as Gordon Chi lde was a lways

careful to point out. The discovery and use of iron

made possible a great extension of the area under

cul t ivat ionin Africa and Asia for instanceby

comparison wi th the Bronze Age when cul t ivat ion

was confined to narrow st r ips and developed most

highly in ferti le river valleys. But new methods of

product ion and socia l organisa t ion did not develop

universally on similar l ines. Iron tools could, how

ever, in favourable circumstances make for a high

development of agricul tura l product ion and the

increase of the surplus. These were the factors of

impo rtance to econom ic and socia l development , i .e .,

not the mere existence and use of the tools but the

ways in which they could be and were put to use in

the product ive process.

Historical Material ism

To begin at the beginning, the historical materialist

approach dist inguishes product ion, which is the

basic activity of human beings, as the foundation of

all human societies. At a primitive stage of social and

technological development m en engage in pro duct ion

in common, having equal access to the means of

produc t ion. This is the stage of pr imi tive co mm unal-

ism which Engels, very much on the lines adopted by

L. H. Morgan, divided into a lower stage of

savag ery ( in turn sub-divided into a lower, middle

and higher) and a mo re advanced stage of bar

ba rism (with a similar triple sub-d ivision). Engels

defines the primitive stages of humanity as those

when men appropria ted f inished natura l products

and acquired knowledge of cattle raising, agriculture

and new methods of increasing the product ivi ty of

nature by huma n agency(Origin of the Family (1884),

ch. 1).

Class society, the social division of labour, arises

when a section of society gains control over the basic

means of product ion and so over those engaged in

product ion and the product . Men now stand in

different relations to the means of production and so

in different relations to each other, relations of

dominance and dependency. These f ind expression

in the fact that the surplus available from production

is appropria ted, in kind or in money, by the exploi t

ing class, either directly or through a state apparatus.

There are, as Marx suggested, a variety of ways

in which the process of disintegration of primitive

comm unal ism m ay take place , just as there are vary

ing forms of primitive society. The point emphasised

in discussion was how relatively easy it is for old

bonds to be loosened once product ion reaches a


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MARXISM TODAY, JUNE 1962

187

certain level and a surplus becomes available, and

for a primitive form of class society to emerge. For

instance, a priesthood can gain special rights, elders

can gain dom inatio n over junio rs, clan chieftains c an

turn landlord. With the social division of labour,

customthe oldest and strongest bond of primitive

societiesgives place to differing rights and obliga

tions enforced by new forms of government. It is not

profitable to push back the frontiers of feudalism

too far, wherever any form of social division of

labour is found, for this is to deprive the term of all

meaning. But as soon as the social division of

labour comprises exploitation of a dependent class

of producers this marks the first stage of class society.

What form does this exploitation take? At this

stage society is still predo mina ntly agraria n, e conom ic

life is relatively regionalised and localised (though

this does not exclude some trade and towns or even

some form of money), technology is relatively back

ward. The basic form of exploitation Is that of tillers

of the soil by those who have succeeded in getting

the community's rights over the land it tills vested in

themselves, or are in a position to draw off the

surplus, though this is not to say that there are not

free commoners or peasant proprietors as well.

These are the characteristics of feudalism but as yet

in a relatively embryonic form so that the earliest

stage of class society may, perhaps, best be called

proto-feudal .

Development of Class Society

From this first stage of class society there are

various directions of development, depending on

internal conditions, external factors, natural re

sources. These may favour, for instance, a highly

centralised appropriation of the surplus by a priestly

order, appropriation by rising cities or other ruling

groups, implying centralised forms of organisation

and the early rise of forms of state power. Marx, for

instance, emphasised the importance of certain

physical resources, noting that it is the necessity of

bringing a natural force under the control of society,

of economising, of appropriating or subduing it on a

large scale by the work of man's hand, that first

plays the decisive part in the history of industry .

As examples of resulting social relations he cited

Egyp t and India, noting that the need to predict the

rise and fall of the Nile created Egyptian astronomy

and with it the domination of the priests, as directors

of agriculture , while one of the material bases of

the power of the state over the small disconnected

producing organisms in India was the regulation of

the water supply

{Capital,

I, pp. 521-523).

The creation of a strong centralised state super

imposed on a society with a low general level of

economic development, and perhaps persisting forms

of clan organisation, is likely to have a crystallising

and arresting effect. For instance, the central govern

ment in China controlled public works but other

wise,

a few larger towns excepted, the whole empire

wa s resolved into villages ; this made for the

retention of old forms of production unchanged, a

tendency reinforced by the fact that state taxes were

payable in kind

{Selected Corr.

p. 70). Here, then,

Marx is ascribing the stability of despotic forms of

rule predominantly to a form of the division of

labour, dependent in part on such physical features

as large tracts of fertile land, which remained rela

tively constant, the methods of extracting the surplus

being such as to consolidate old rather than develop

new productive relations. Once, of course, there is a

s trong s tate power the accumulat ion of merchant

wealth and its flow into industry or agriculture can

be checked, ways being found of siphoning back the

surplus and maintain ing the t radi t ional balance.

The Problem of Arrested Development

This is the key problem that engaged Marx and

must concern all Marxist historianswhy develop

ment in the Orient, for so long so far in advance of

the rest of the world, was arrested; why the full

chain of development: earlier societiesfeudalism

capitalism, was only completed in Europe. Here it

was noted that Gordon Childe, broaching the

question from the angle of pre-history, suggested the

following factors: (a) natural unevenness of histori

cal development, i .e., that only in certain regions are

there the conditions for an initial development of

civilisation;

{b )

the interaction between cultures

drawn together by t rade, communicat ions , etc . ;

(c) the leapfrogg ing whereby formerly back wa rd

societies which escape the crisis and breakdown of

older, more advanced, systems take over from them

at a potentially higher level.

An example Childe developed is that of Europe,

profiting from the early development of a metallur

gical industry in nearby Egypt and Mesopotamia

where alone the economic and social preconditions

for the initial foundation of a metallurgical industry

existed . Tha t they could mak e use of the produc ts of

this , and develop the mining of ore for a guaranteed

market , exempted Europe ans from paying the

heavy price of starting such an industry from

scra tch in term s of the rigid class distinctions and

despotic rule of Egypt of the Pharaohs, which

eventually fettered development and ended in break

down ( The Bronze Age ,

Past and Present,

No. 12,

19571.

The fact that any more elaborate society (before

the industrial capitalist), when it collapses, tends to

lapse into a feudal form also suggests that this is the

most primitive form of class society^temples decay,

trade an d towns deteriora te, leaving a set-up of a

feudal type. On the other hand, where slavery


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If


develops as the basic form of productive relations in

the classical world it is on the foundation of a

relatively high level of development; for instance, of

trade and of crafts, with the existence of a monetary

system and a system of usury. The process in

Europe was a ided by a varie ty of specia l condi t ions;

for instance, there were in close proximity to Greece

other societies at a much lower level from which

slaves could be obtained. Hence the use-value of

their labour power was increased by the mere fact

of t ransport ing them to an area of more advanced

technology, and since they were brought across the

sea to a land encirc led by mou nta ins escape was n ot

easy. This is one of the main contributory factors in

ensuring that a high surplus value can be obta ined

(otherwise slaves must be chained, which is a

hindrance, or well treated which is expensive);

while the other is that the general technical level of

production should be relatively high. Here is the

decisive reason for rejecting the view that slavery is

the first stage of class society to develop. On the

contrary, slavery develops within the framework of

proto-feudal re la t ions, and only in part icular condi

t ions becomes the predominant mode of product ion.

Vv'hen it collapses, society lapses into a feudal form

if at a potentially higher level of development.

Turning to Africa , i t was noted that there are

traceable forms of vassalage developing directly out

of clan or tribal society, side by side with continuing

primit ive forms of organisa t ion and government . As

elsewhere in the ancient world, commodi ty produc

tion was restricted, there were neither a reservoir of

detribalised labour nor the techniques of using it .

Early feudal ty pe states were very stable, lasting from

800 to 900 years, with an eco nom y sufficiently

developed to support a quite complex social system

including an embryonic civil service and army.

There was, however, a notable absence of free urban

communi t ies. Moreover , forms of landholding and

relations of dominance and dependency differed so

greatly from those in feudal Europe that i t does not

seem useful to apply the same term to them.

To take another point, i t was suggested that i t is

possible to part icular ise developments during the

breakdown of pr imi t ive communal ism af ter the

agrar ian revolut ion. Fi rst , there i s the consol idat ion

of forms of clan society based on kins hip which cover

some inequalit ies but can remain very stable over

long periods, especially in out of the way conditions,

e.g., Scotland. Second, the breakdown of clan society

in the aspect that has been called the Heroic Age

which often acts as a bridge to the establishment of

feudal relations at a relatively high level. This is

found at t imes of migration and new settlement, an

essential condition being that tribal peoples are in a

posi t ion to plunder and learn from older and

richer societies; as, for instance, in the Greek

Homeric period and the period when the Germanic

t r ibes invested Rome and swept across Western

Europe^while i t is possible that such a stage can be

discerned in Africa, when the Polynesians broke out

over the Pacific and so on.

The Road to Feudal ism

This was the direct road to feudalism as i t was

traversed in parts of Europe after the collapse of the

Roman Empire . There was a whole varie ty of

factors contr ibut ing to cont inued advance in

Europe, towards a developed form of feudal ism,

which is of ten typifiedthough wi th much too mu ch

emphasis on purely legal formsby Norman

England. Precise ly because this i s the connota t ion

of feudalism it is difficult to apply the term without

much qualification to the Chinese Empire or to

Africa . This i s now the main problem, wi th which

presumably Marx was preoccupied when he postu

lated several variations in the basic form of economy

that emerges from disintegrat ing comm unal socie ties

of different types. On these fronts a plea was made

for rehabi l i ta tion of Ma rx 's Asia t ic mo de or

even severa l modesto enable a separa t ion out of

widely differing regional variations. At the same time

it is essential to keep clear the basic common factors

in such format ions even though they may exhibi t

many secondary varia t ions; or , to put i t another

way, the t ransi t ion from communal socie ty to the

first stage of class society is fundamentally the same

transition though it may take place in x number of

ways.

This is why it may be useful to postulate the

development of a single basic stage of class society,

ca l ling this perhaps proto-feu dal . F rom this

regional variations may develop exhibiting essen

tially the same basic form of exploitation but in

which the creation and drawing off of the surplus

diiTers, implying differing superstructures and rates

of development.

These were some of the viewspoints advanced

which should be considered as such; there was no

question of formulating a series of conclusions on

which all those present agreed. The aim was rather

to define a genera l approach to the problem, sup

ported by evidence from various fields, which could

serve as a contr ibut ion to the discussion here and

the basis for further more specialised discussions in

the future. Some of the points will be more fully

developed in later articles, since this is only a digest

from the record of a detailed exchange of views. It is

a lso hoped that mater ia l f rom discussions in other

countries will become available, for the important

and interesting questions at issue can only be satis

factorily hammered out as a result of international

study and discussion.


7/7

189

T h e W e e k o f M a r x i s t T h o u g h t

i n F r a n c e

Phyl Gr iffi th-Hentge s

D

URING the past few months pol i t ical l i fe

in France has been galvanised into action

unprecedented for ma ny years . The central

problems wereand indeed remainthe s i tua

tion in Algeria, the danger of fascism created

by the O.A.S., and the fight to restore democracy.

The atmosphere became part icularly tense in

February (a mil l ion Paris ians at tended the funeral

of the eight anti-fascists brutally killed at a big

ant i -O.A.S.

demonstrat ion) and tension s lackened

only when the cease-fire was signed between de

Gaulle and the Provis ional Government of the

Algerian Republic .

m the middle cf il .is period the Week of

Marxis t Thought was organised in Paris (Decem

ber 7th-14th) around the j;eiicral theme:

Hu ma nism and Dialect ics . This crystal l ised an

upsurge of intellectual reflection provmg the need

for a discussion of the philosophical problems of

the day associated with the increasing political

activity of the working class and the people as

a whole.

I t showed the at t ract ion that Marxism holds

not only for the working class, but for large

numbers of in tel lectuals and profess ional people

doctors , schoolteachers , technicianswho, un

decided as to their future in present-day France,

seek a new way forward.

The result was that 6,000 students and intellec

tuals gathered on the first day to hear Roger

Garaudy and Jean Pierre Vigier debate with Jean

Paul Sartre and Jean Hyppoli te . Never had the

hal ls of the Mutual i te , t radi t ional meet ing house

in the Lat in Quarter , seen such crowds. There

were students on the stairs, in the corridors, in

annexeswherever they could hear the over-flow

loudspeakers, and it was a long time before the

queues in the street gave up the idea of getting in.

These young people, reputed by some to be twis t-

crazy, turbulent hoodlums, l is tened to two hours

of debate on the dialectics of nature in total

silence.

In all, some 20,000 people attended the various

conferences during this Week, organised by the

Centre d 'Etudes et de Recherches Marxis tes

(C.E.R.M.) together with the Paris Dis tr ict Com

mit tee of the French Communis t Party and the

Union of Communis t Students .

There were five big meetings which took the

form of a debate between Marxis ts and non-

Marxis ts :

Are dialectics merely a law governing history

or also a natural law?

The historian and his time;

Humanism and Cinema;

Humanism and the human being;

Conduct of revolt and militant action.

At the final meeting at the Mutualite, Roger

Garaudy, d irector of the C.E.R.M. and member of

the pol i t ical bureau of the Comm unis t Party ,

summed up the results of the Week, and Waldeck

Rochet , deputy general secretary of the Party con

cluded on the theme: The Communis t Party and

Culture.

At the same time., the big debates were accom

panied by forty-odd study circles for students at

which Marxist university professors led the dis

cussion on various subjects connected with the

univers i ty programmes. Here the aim was nei ther

a debate nor a purely university course, but rather

to give the students a Marxist orientation on a

given subject and to discuss questions of method.

The wide range of these study circles can be

judged by taking a few of the subjects at random:

The ethics of Kant and Marx;

Can a Marxist understand Pascal?

The role of the state budget;

Phenomenology and praxis;

The role of nucleic acids in heredity;

Pavlov's theory applied to obstetrics;

Mayakovsky;

The class struggle in ancient Greece and Rome;

The crisis of colonialism and problems of under

developed countries.

The organisers decided to draw in to the work

of the Week not only intellectuals but a much

wider general public, and for this they sought the

help of

rUniversite Nouvelle,

already well know n

for i ts courses on Marxism. Three conferences

were held at which the teachers of

I'Universite

Nouvelle

answ ered questions arising from the big

debates , explain ing the basic principles of M arxism

in history, science and philosophy.

Documents

Marxim Today II