MARX, HISTORICAL MATERIALISM AND THE

ASIATIC WDE OF PRODUCTION

BY

Joseph Bensdict Huang Tan

B.A. (Honors) Simon Fraser University 1994

THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN THE SCHOOL OF COMMUN ICATION

@Joseph B. Tan 2000

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

July 2000

Al1 rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. uisitions and Acguiiiet raphii Senrices senrices bibiiihiques

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The author tetains ownership of the L'auîeur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis*Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts iÏom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ABSTRACT

Historical materialism (HM), the theory of history originally developed by Marx and Engels is most comrnonly interpreted as a unilinear model, which dictates that al1 societies must pass through definite and universally similar stages on the route to communism. This simplistic interpretation existed long before Stalin and has persisted long after the process of de-Stalinization and into the present. This interpretation has caused many theoretical and practical problems over the years for Marxism. Most notably, a teleological interpretation denigrates the importance of the active or conscious side of HM and leads to the widespread acceptance of a hisrarical fatalism in the field of theory and political quietism in place of conscious class struggle and revolutionary politics.

The Asiatic mode of production (AMP) offers concrete evidence that Marx and Engels, as well as generations of

Marxists proceeding them, understood hurnan history as a very different, and much more cornplex, rnultilinear totality. This thesis will prove that despite its controversial nature, the AMP consistently remained an integral aspect of Marx and Engels' model of HM throughout their lives, It will be argued that the two authorsr development of the AMP spanned many decades and was based on careful and considered analysis of how historical developments in other parts of the 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 of Contents

Approval...... ii Abstrrct...... iii Table of Contents...... v Listof figures...... vi Prefrce ...... vii Introduction...... 1

Chapter One: The Controversial Nature of the Asiatic Mode ofProduction...... 0

Chapter Two: The Origins of the Asiatic Mode of Production

in 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 List 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 dom ta succeeding generations in ar? improved condition. '

' Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 3. Edited by Frederick Engels. (Moscow: Progreçs Publishers, 1977), p. 776 Introduction

The Asiatic mode of production (NP) 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- including the defense of the building of Socialism in One

Country in the USSR, etc.) are discussed in detail in this thesis. To varying degrees, these reasons al1 contributed to the eventual 'official abolition1 of the AMP in a 1931 Communist

Party conference in Leningrad and its subsequent elimination from official Marxist 'orthodoxy'.

However, it will be argued that the single, most overriding reason for both the desire to deny and abandon the

AMP, as well as the obstinate refusal to resume research into this social formation, has been the long-standing hegemony of unilinear interpretations of historical materialism. Contxary to conventional belief, these unilinear interpretations of history predated the Marxism of the Second International and linger to the present-long after de-Stalinization and the collapse of

'actually existing Commwiismi.

More than any other concept in Marxist theory, the AMP provides concrete evidence that Marx, and Engels meant their theory of history to be interpreted in a multilinear fashion, in a manner that helped shed light on the vast differences and diversities in the histories of the cultures, nations and social formations of which historical materialism sought to assist in both analyzing and changing. Brendan OrLeary observed that

"historical materialisrn is damned if it retains the Asiatic 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 Blackwell 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 rejoin 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, in his Foreword to Umberto Melottirs Marx and the Third World was moved declare that "That awkward appendage to the corpus of Marxism-The Asiatic mode of production-has been laid to rest with even greater frequency than the general body of which it forms an apparently casual member." (p. vii) There are many examples of attempts to eliminate the AMP £rom Marxism to choose from. In their Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production, Barry Hindess and Paul Hirst reach the conclusion that it is not "possible to construct a concept of the AMP ...which corresponds to the general definition of mode of production in historical materialism and which is distinct from any other mode of production." (p. 179) In other words, the AMP does not exist as a concept within historical materialism.

Brendan O'Leary, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Oriental Despotism, Historical 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, editors, The Economics of Marx: Selected Readings of Exposition and Criticism. (New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 1976) , p. 235 ' Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), p. 183; Needless to Say, the passage in question has been subjected to endiess exegetical analysis by proponents of both unilinear as well as multilinear interpretations of historical materialism. The autline of this debate will be examined and discussed in detail in 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 invent the term 'Asiatic mode of productionr. Having announced it to the world he subsequently never used the term publicly agai~~."~Some authors have even claimed that Marx abandoned the concept as he learned more about Asia and other non-capitalist social formation^.'^ Years later, Engels added to the controversy over the legitimacy of the concept by omitting any implicit or explicit reference to it in his The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, despite the fact that just 6 years earlier, he had acknowledged and discussed the existence of the AMP, without actually mentioning it by name, in

~nti-~uhring."Nonetheless, it is worth reiterating 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 ~houqhtof 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 of 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 issue of whether or not Engels 'abandonedr the AMP later in his life has been debated since the beginnings of Marxism itself. This question actually falls within the much more broader discussion of whether Engels 'deviatedl from the thinking of Marx later in his life (i.e., after the death of Marx in 1883). The main argument most often used by the proponents of the 'abandonmentr thesis is the fact that Engels never again mentioned the term after the death of Marx. Hal Draper argued quite convincingly that this apparent 'omissionr on the part of Engels was actually a result of the particular intellectual division of labour upon which the two authors came to base their lifelong collaboration upon, and not due to any conscious attempt on the part of Engels to 'abandon' the AMP. Hal Drapes, Karl Marxrs Theory of Revolution Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), pp. 657-660; Maurice Godelier concurs with Draper's assessment, noting that *A more detailed and chronological analysis of Marx's and Engelst correspondence has brought out clearly the fact that neither of them had rejected the ideas elaborated between 1853 and 1877 concerning the existence of 'despotic' forms of the State constructed in Asia, Russia or elsewhere on the basis of earlier agricultural communities." David Seddon, ed., Relations of Production: Marxist Approaches to Economic Anthropology. (London: Frank Cass and Company, Ltd., 1978), p. 210 l2 This is a point emphasized by Derek Sayer, who argued that Marx was willing to "modify and even abandon, the supposed general theory of history conventionally ascribed to him, in the light of fresh empirical evidence." Zaheer Baber, Review of The Violence of Abstraction: The Analytic Foundationç of Historical Materialism, by Derek Sayer and Readings From Karl Mam, edited by Derek Sayer. In Journal of Contemporary Asia Vol. 21, No. 2 (1991), p. 247 idea of an Asiatic mode of production to the end of his life."13

As Anne Bailey and Josep Llobera pointed out,

Marx's development of the concept of a specific social totality, the Asiatic mode of production, spanned a period of thirty years, beginning with his newspaper articles of the 18509, extending through his critiques of political economy, and culminating in his correspondence and ethnological research of the last years of his life. In certain writings, particular elements of this totality-property, the division of labour, surplus appropriation, exchange, and commodity production--are treated in detail. However, Marx never achieved a systernatic exposition of his theory of the AMp.14

That Marx was never able to arrive at a comprehensive and definitive development of his idea of the AMP is another reason for the controvervy surrounding the concept. Certain authors have argued that the fact that Marx evidently did not find iC important enough to devote more time to developing the theory of the AMP is sufficient proof to show that the concept was of only peripheral value and significance to Marx and thus should be discarded once and for all. And yet the fact remains that Marx did indeed refer to the idea of an AMP on many occasions in his lifetime, that he "used Asia as the basis for his analysis of a fundamentally different line of development from Western

Europer s ."lS Stephen Dunn noted that 'those (authors) who were

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

'' Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 19811, p. 2 3

'' Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), p. 49 not prepared either ta reject Marx or to accept the Asiatic mode of production were compelled to find some way of disposing of the inconvenient passages in which Marx appeared to postulate such a mode."16 Ernest Mandel illustrates one example of just this sort of discursive tactic which was ernployed by an o?ponent of the AMP:

V. Struve, pope of Soviet historiography of the East during the Stalin period, and the authority rnainly responsible fox the 'rejection' of the Asiatic mode of production, found a passage in the writings of Richard Jones in which the latter affirmed that it was the non-agricultural population that carried out large-scale public works in Eastern countries. Bringing this quotation together with two passages in Volume 1 of Capital where Marx points out that the occasional large-scale cooperative effort made by working people in pre-capitalist Society was usually due to their serf-like subordination to the ruling power, or to their being slaves, and that the great public works of the ancient East were made possible by 'the concentration in one hand, or in a small number of hands, of the revenues on which the workers livedff Struve gaily arrived at 'proof' that, for Marx, the Asiatic mode of production was actually a particular form of the slaveowning mode of production! " Sorne other authors have gone further than this, arguing that Marx was completely mistaken in his analysis of Asiatic societies. Comenting on the idea of an Indian AMP, the Indian historian D. O. Kosambi declared that "what Marx himself said

'' Stephen P. Dunn, The Fall and Rise of The Asiatic Mode of Production. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982), pp. 9-11

" Ernest Mandel, The Formation of 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. (Eric J. Hobsbawm, Editor) . (New York: International Publishers, 1964 ) p. 61 '' Stephen P. Dunn, The Fall and Rise of The Asiatic Mode of Production. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, l982), p. Il

Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (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 rational 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 cent~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 OrLeary, 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 his 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 last 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 stated that "Marx's concept of the Asiatic mode of production thus poses a serious challenge to the assumption that Marx developed a philosophy of history universal in its applicability." M.C. Howard and J.E. King, editors, The Economics of Marx: Selected Readings of Exposition and Criticisut. (New York: Penguin Books Ltd., 1976) , 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 that "It has been suggested by at least one Western scholar (the late Karl A. Wittfogel), and by some of the participants in the original Soviet debate which led to the abandonment of the concept, that the Asiatic mode of production was removed from the official Soviet-Marxist theoretical arsenal for political reasons." Stephen P. Dunn, The Fall and Rise of The Asiatic Mode of Production. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 19821, p. 4

29 This was the central argument advanced by the ex-Marxist Wittfogel in his 1957 work Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. The debates concerning the relevance of the concept of Oriental Despotism to an analysis of Chinars bureaucratized state structure continue to this day. See the collection of essays in Timothy Brook's The Asiatic Mode of Production in China.

'O Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977)' p. 629 Karl Wittfogel, "in order to denounce any past, present or future goverment they may dislike outside Western ~uro~e."~'

Although Wittfogel had the Soviet Union in mind, in the aftermath of the Sino-Soviet split these polemics came to be directed more and more against Maors China. Thus, Roger ~araud~~~ denounced Mao Tze-Dong and the 'erroneousl economic and political policies he had adopted in China, calling them

\sequelsr of the Asiatic mode of production. Helene Carrere d'Encausse and Stuart Schram commented that '...it is impossible to deny the anti-Chinese animus of many of those who refer to the concept of the Asiatic mode of production t~day."~~

Discussion of the applicability of the theory of the AMP

to China had already taken place several decades before the

Sino-Soviet split, though in a very different political and

historical conjuncture. China had been the subject of intense political and theoretical discussion within the international

communist movement (i.e., the Comintern) in the 1920rs, during

the period of its second revolution in 1926-27. The debate

centered around the question of what was the correct policy the

Comintern had to adopt in relation to that revolution.

'' 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 until 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 .35 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 Stuart 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 Stalin confirmed this interpretation in Dialectical and Ristorical Materialism, observing that "in China a semi-feudal sysrem still 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~tianthat 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 Kas1 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 the ineluctable leadership of the Chinese proletariat.

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 the stress placed on the possible 'political 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

rather than an attempt to validate or invalidate the theory in relation to specific independent, external criteria. 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 .4e 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

44 Harold R. Isaacs, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution, Second Revised Edition. (New York: Atheneum, 1968), pp. 160-162; see also Michael Lowy, The Politics of Combined and Uneven Development: The Theory of Permanent Revolution. (London: Verso, 1981) , pp. 78-80

45 Michael Lowy, The Politics of Combined and Uneven Development: The Theory of Permanent Revolution. (London: Verso, 1981) , pp . 80-8 1

46 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 19711, p. 118

Marian Sawer, 'The Politics of Historiography: Russian Socialism & The Question of the Asiatic Mode of Production 1906-1931," Critique 10-11 (Winter-Spring, 1978-79), p. 22

'' Stephen P, Dunn, The Fall and Rise of The Asiatic Mode of Production. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982) , pp. 9-11; Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume 1: State 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 Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981), p. 52

Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), pp. 629-630

51 Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), p. 629; see also Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981) , p. 52; Umberto Melotti also stresses this point, noting that "the tendency ta consider Oriental societies as an Asiatic variant 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 "Reaffirmation of Unilinealism" was now completed .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 Marxrs 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 Josep R. Llobera, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981), p. 52 s6 The fact that this solitary reference is delivered in a highly ironic context and an almost condescending manner does not help Marx's case. In a discussion of the possible consequences of an ongoing peasant revolt in China in February 1850, Marx observed that "It may well be that Chinese socialism is related to European socialism just as Chinese philosophy is related to Hegelian philosophy. But it is an amusing fact that the oldest and most unshattered Empire on this earth has been pushed, in eight years, by the cotton bal1 of the British bourgeois toward the brink of a social upheaval that must have most profound consequences for civilization. When our European reactionaries, on their next flight through Asia, will have finally reached the Chinese wall, the gates that lead to the seat of primeval reaction and conservatismwho knows, perhaps they will read the following inscription on the Wall: Republique Chinoise-Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite!" Quoted by Avineri in M.C. Roward and J.E. King, editors, The Economics of ~arx:Selected Readings of Exposition and Criticism. [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 Exile, Political Writings: Volume 2. (London: Penguin Books, 1992) p. 320

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

'' Karl Marx, Surveys £rom Exile: Political Writings: Volume 2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics, 1992), pp. 305-306 However, a careful reading of their writings on Asia would show that Marx, and probably Engels, almost certainly never believed that Asiatic States dominated by the AMP were doomed to eternal stagnation in the absence of imperialist intervention in their economic and political affairs. Mandel has pointed out that the theory of the AMP does not imply that "the nations of

Asia would not have been able to achieve capitalism on their own. It merely explains why Western Europe was able, starting in the sixteenth century, to get further and further ahead of the rest of the ~orld."~~Carrere d'Encausse and Schram commented that "(Marx) was persuaded that the Indians, whose human qualities he praises highly, were entirely capable of playing a

role in the world and of developing in their turn a dynamic civilizati~n..!'~~George Lichtheim observed that Marx, in a

footnote in Volume 3 of capitalg4, seemed to be hinting that if

it had not been for the "string of futile and really absurd (in practice infamous) economic experiments" carried out by the

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%If any nation's history, then the history of the English in India is a string of futile and really absurd (in practice infamous) economic experiments. In Bengal they created a caricature of large- scale English landed estates; in south-eastern India a caricature of small parcelled property; in the northwest they did al1 they could to transfom the Indian economic comunity with common ownership of the soi1 into a caricature of itself-" Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 3. Edited by Frederick Engels. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, lWï}, 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 the 'Asiatic Mode of Production'." in St. Antonyf s Papers, Number 14. Edited by G.F. Hudson. (London: Chatto and Windus, 1963), p. 97

66 Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (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 Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and translated by Ben Fowkes. (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), p. 171

Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981), p. 34

69 George Lichtheim, "Marx and the 'Asiatic Mode of Production' ." in St. Antony's Papers, Number 14. Edited by G.F. Hudson. (London: Chatto andWindus, 1963), p. 98

'"tephen Dunn declares that "any revival of the concept of the Asiatic mode of production at the present point in intellectual history must depend on data and considerations of which Marx and Engels were not aware." Stephen Dunn, The Fall and Rise af the Asiatic Mode of Production. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982i, 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, for example, States that "Since Oriental society does not develop internally, it cannot evolve toward capitalism through the dialectics of internal change; and since Marx postulates the ultimate victory of socialism on the prior universalization of capitalism, he necessarily arrives at the position of having to endorse European colonial expansion as a brutal but necessary step toward the victory of socialisrn." M.C. Howard and J.E. King, editors, development of their economic contradictions or through external force, al1 nations characterized by the AMP, or any other pre- capitalist mode of production, had to be compelled '...on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production... to introduce what (the bourgeoisie) calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois thernselve~."'~He stressed this point in a letter to Engels on October 8, 1858:

The specific task of bourgeois society is the establishment of a world market, at least in outline, and of production based upon this world market. As the world is round, this seems to have been completed by the colonization of California and Australia and the opening up of China and Japan. The difficult question for us is this: on the continent the revolution is imminent and will immediately assume a socialist character. 1s it not bound to be crushed in this little corner, considering that in a far greater territory the movement of bourgeois society is still in the a~cendant??~

Here we can see the error of the interpretation which holds that Marx idealized or romanticized the West and the specific fonn of historical development it had undergone, and which claims that he viewed the capitalist West as a highly advanced form of civilization which should be striven for by al1 other nations. The forced integration of the non-capitalist world into the world-market, the violent imposition of

The Economics of Marx: Selected Readings of Exposition and Criticism. (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 from 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. 76

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 In contrast to the absurd daims made by the Stalinist defenders of Peaceful Co-existence Fernando Claudin stressed that any successful, future anti-capitalist revolution ushering in the process of socialist construction would necessarily have to be completely global in nature. Claudin noted that "For Lenin, as for Marx and Engels, the socialist was essentially a world revolution, even if it was not possible for the working class to take power simultaneously in every country, or even, except in unusual circumstances, in several countries at once, This world-wide nature of the socialist revolution followed, for Marx, from the very nature of modem productive forces, which makes capitalism a world system, an economic system that tends towards the integration of human society on the planetary scale. A fortiori, socialism, being the product, in the last analysis, of a transition of the productive forces to a still higher level, cannot really exist otherwise than as a world system." Fernando Claudin, The Communist Movement: From Comintern to Cominform. (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 19751, p. 46 to resemble that hideous pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain. 77

Ultimately, the question of whether or not Asiatic societies could have achieved capitalist development on their own without imperialist intervention is of secondary importance in the attempt to understand exactly hou Marx and Engels conceived of history, progress and historical materialism. The more important question is: How did Marx and Engels conceptualize Asiatic societies, and their peculiar form of progress (or the lack thereof), as being qualitatively different from the Western model-a form of development which, unlike in the East, eventually led to the developrnent of capitalism in

Europe? An answer may be found in their scattered writings and observations on the Asiatic mode of production.

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

- 42 - Chapte+ 2: The Otigina of the Asiatic 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 already discussed, in the previous chapter, how

Marx's interest in the East was largely a byproduct of his interest in understanding the process whereby the capitalist world was rapidly expanding into the pre-capitalist world around it. Discussion of the issue of whether Marx's interest was stimulated primarily by the question of the revolutionary potential of Asia or rather by a desire to better comprehend the nature of the colonialist exploitation being thrust upon the pre-capitalist world is beyond the scope of this thesis. What is clear however, is that Marx's interest in Asia began to develop

in earnest when he was assigned by a major American newspaper to write on British colonial affairs in the early 1850s. Lawrence

Krader stated that "the earliest significant writings by Karl

Marx on the theory of the Oriental society were brought out by him in a series of articles in the New-York Daily Tribune, for which he served as London correspondent in the 1850s."'

Regarding the history of the development of their thoughts

concerning Asia, Eric Hobsbawm noted that

There is no evidence that before 1848 either Marx or Engels thought or read rnuch on (Oriental history)... the political developments of the 1850s and above al1 Marx's economic studies, rapidly transformed their knowledge ...( Marx) began to publish articles on China (June 14) and India (June 25) for the New York Daily Tribune in 1853. It is evident that in (1853) both he and Engels were deeply preoccupied with the historical problems of the Orient, to the point where Engels atternpted to learn Persian.,It is reasonable to suppose that Marx's views on Asiatic society received

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. BO

- 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 fom of al1 phenomena in the East-he refers to Turkey,

Persia, Hindustan-is to be found in the fact that no private property in land e~isted."~(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 Frederick Engels, The Selected Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-1895. (New York: International Publishers, 1942), p. 65

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Selected Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-1895. (New York: International Publishers, l942), p. 66

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. 239 la Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Selected Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-1895. (New York: International Publishers, 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. (Eric J. Hobsbawm, Editor) . (New York: International Publishers, l964), pp. 69-70 '' Karl Marx, Grundrisse (Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy). Translated by Martin Nicolaus. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Baoks Ltd., L973), p. 473 He once again emphasized this same point concerning the common possession and use of land years later in Volume 3 of

Capital, but at the same time reinstated the idea of the absence of private property in land: "...the state is then the supreme lord. Sovereignty here consists in the ownership of land concentrated on a national scale. But, on the other hand, no private ownership of land exists, although there is bath private and common possession and use of land."13 The question remains: how central was the absence of private property in land to Marx and Engelsf conception of the AMP? Helene Carrere d'Encausse and

Stuart Schram noted that even when Marx learned 'of the existence of private property in land in China, he continued to regard this country, like India, as an example of the 'Asiatic' syste~n."'~Melotti noted that "Marx himself had recognised by the late 1850s that Chinese peasants 'for the most part held their lands, which are of very limited extent, in full property from the Crown, subject to certain annual charges of no very exorbitant amount' ."'5 Despite this, he continued to acknowledge this Asiatic interpretation of the Chinese landholding system on a number of occasions and clearly regarded the econornic and

l3 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political 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 fom 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, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 3. Edited by Frederick Engels. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 19771, p. présent Chinese land system." Melotti has gane rnuch further than this, stating that despite the presence of private pxoperty in land in its production relations, "China can be called the most classic and significant example of a society based on the

Asiatic mode of psoduction..flE

Stephen Dunn traced the possible source of this confusion regarding the role of the absence of private property in the concept of the AMP to the fact that Marx based his initial theorization on

accounts by Western travellers and colonial administrators describing Indian, and, in a few cases, Chinese society-accounts which suffered from the unconscious cultural biases of their authors, who were unable to find private property of the familiar Western bourgeois type and therefare concluded that no private property of any kind existed in the Oriental societies which they observed.

On the other hand, the Indian author Guna pointed out that

Chinese society may have indeed been characterized by a

qualitatively different and unique forrn of private landholding,

one in which the king was "only a nominal owner of al1 lands"

who possessed "the divine right over the entire property in a

State3*. In return, "the king would confer titular rights on

fractions of land and slaves to the members of the king's royal

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

IRUmberto 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 or clan, and to those nobles... who have done meritorious service to the kingdom."'' In this context, we begin to see the qualitative difference between the situation originally described by Bernier ('the king (as) the sole...p roprietor..!' ) and

Marx's interpretation of this. The two propositions are very different and 'sole proprietorship, certainly signals something very different from an absence of private property in land, at

least in this context. In any case, it seems clear that Marx eventually moved away £rom his original understanding of

Bernier's statement as a reference to the complete absence of private property in land and towards a mode1 of the AMP based

upon generalized common ownership of the land.

However, the general absence of private property in land

cannot be completely dismissed as an essential feature, possibly

even a determinant one, of the AMP. Marx explicitly stated, in

'The Future Results of the British Rule in India" that the

introduction of the Zemindari and Ryotwari systems of land

tenure in India, which involved "two distinct forms of private

property in land (was) the great desideratum of Asiatic

s~ciety."~~This statement certainly illustrates the centrality

and importance of the absence of private property in land, not

just to his conception of the AMP but indeed, to its very

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

2' Karl Marx, Surveys from Exile: Political 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. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), pp, 137-138; We have already noted, in the previous chapter, how the enforced, large-scale privatization of land in India by the British helped bring about the revolutionary dissolution of traditional Indian society.

Karl Marx, Grundrisse (Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy). Translated by Martin Nicolaus. (Hamondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973), p. 471; This point will be discussed further later on. ownership of land for the continued survival of the AMP is never fully and definitively elucidated. The two are not the same and it seems likely that both forms of land tenure may have coexisted, together or at different historical periods, within the AMP. On the other hand, Marx's indirect admission that a

Chinese AMP could be marked by the existence of private property in land meant that, contrary to his initial position which was later abandoned, there was tpragress'-even in the Western sense of the word-in Asiatic societies after all. Indeed, it would appear that Marx and Engels increasingly came to believe, as their understanding of Asiatic society deepened, that the 'real key' to the AMP was to be found in something other than either the mere absence of private property in land, or, more generally, the nature of the property relations existing in

Asiatic society. The secret of Asiatic societies rested in other far more fundamental deteminants-in the peculiar nature of the economic foundations of the AMP, which the absence of private property and presence of communal ownership in land merely helped to bring about and sustain.

Engels' in his response to Marx on June 6, 1853, engaged in a highly speculative--and much debated--geographical or environmental determinism in his attempt to come to terms with the peculiar economic history of Asia. Agreeing with Marx's original observations regarding the absence of private property 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: Political Writings: Volume 2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics, 1992), p. 303; This comment was taken, practically verbatim, by Marx from Engel's letter 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 that Marx was in general agreement with Engels regarding the importance of these great public works in the Asiatic state. In this letter, Engels had observed that ',.an Oriental government never had more than three departments: finance (plunder at home), war (plunder at home and abroad) , and public works (provision for reproduction)." Marx, Karl and Frederkk Engels. The Selected Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 1846-1895. (New York: International Publishers, 19421, p. 67

27 Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, editors, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 19811, p. 265 regime hovering over the little In a situation wherein the despotic State authority rules over al1 and is, at the same time, the main-or possibly the only-owner of al1 the

land in the empire, then land-rent and al1 taxes collected by this state become one and the same:

Should the direct producers not be confronted by a private landowner, but rather, as in Asia, under direct subordination to a state which stands over them as their landlord and simultaneously as sovereign, then rent and taxes coincide, or rather, there exists no tax which differs from this fonn of ground-rent. Under such circumstances, there need exist no stronger political or economic pressure than that common to al1 subjection to that state. The state is then the supreme lord.29

However, Engelsf suggestion regarding the vital nature of

public works as a founding component of Asiatic States merely

begs the question: How does the accomplishment of certain tasks,

benefiting society as a whole, allow the Asiatic state to

achieve control and ownership of al1 land in the first place?

Engels1 himself provided the most concrete, yet far from fully

satisfactory, answer 25 years later in this passage from Anti-

Duhring:

It is not necessary for us to examine here how this independence of social functions in relation to society increased with time until it developed into domination over society; how what was originally the servant developed gradually, where conditions were favourable, into the lord; how this lord, on the

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 the 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 in Science (Anti- Duhring). (New York: International Publishers, 19391, pp. 198-199

31 David Seddon, editor, Relations of Production: Marxist Approaches to Economic Anthropoloqy . (London: Frank Cass and Company, Ltd., 1978 1 , p. 212; Discussion of whether or not the Asiatic State bureaucracy formed a class in specifically Marxist terms is beyond the scope of this thesis. The more general question of whether or not bureaucraties are social classes was of course intensely debated with the rise of Stalinism in the 20t" century. It has already been noted that the idea that an Asiatic bureaucracy could constitute itself into an exploiting class was one of the reasons for the opprobriurn the AMP suffered within the Comintern and, more specifically, the USSR.

32 Anne M. Bailey and Josep R. Llobera, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1981), p. 264 or group of persans performing a socially useful 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 to be most fruitfully applied in the 2oth century by Leon Trotsky in his extended analysis of the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and eventual fall, in 1991, of the Soviet Union.

j4 The attempt to explain the mechanism or process of this transformation of social function into state power has clearly led some Marxists astray. Eugene Varga argued that because the Asiatic state arises not through class struggle but due to the objective need for this state to provide public works, then this state was of a "completely pacifist nature". Quoted in Marian Sawer, "The Politics of Hiçtoriography: Russian Socialism & The Question of the Asiatic Mode of Production l906-l93l." Critique 10-11 (Winter-Spring, 1978-79) , p. 19; Varga's proposition is quite dubious on several counts, not the least of which is the authorrs extremely static conception of the Asiatic state. The bulk of Marx and Engels writings on Asia lead to a model of a relatively autonomous Asiatic state structure which was certainly not of a 'pacifistr nature, and Engels himself once called oriental despotism "the most barbarous form of the state." Frederick Engels, Herr Eugen Duhringts Revolution in Science (Anti-Duhring) . (New York: International Publishers, 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 the 'Asiatic Mode of Production' ." in St. Antony's Papers, Number 14. Edited by G.F. Hudson. (London: Chatto and Windus, 1963), p, 96

36 The article was written by Marx on June 10, 1853. However, it was not published until 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 .30 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: Political Writings: Volume 2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics, 1992), p. 303

38 Aijaz Ahmad undertakes an excellent critique of Edward Saidfs charge of 'orientalism' leveled against Marx. See Chapter 6 ("Marx on India: A Clarification") of his In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures.

39 '-the whole of (India's) past history, if it be anything, is the history of the successive conquests she has undergone. Indian society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we cal1 its history is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting 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 fom 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 life .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 from Exile : Political Writings : Volume2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics, 19921, p. 320

Melotti argues the same point: ''too low a degree of civilisationt,.can probably be taken here as being the same thing as the low level of productive forces." Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 19771, p. 55

4L KarL Marx, Surveys from Exile: Political 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 ."43 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." 44 Ervand Abrahamian clarified the specific meaning of the latter statement by Marx, noting that

These communities-villages, tribes, and tom 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: International Publishers, l942), p. 70

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. 288

" Karl Marx, Surveys from Exile: Political 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.~~

45 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, to name a few of many authors, are in genexal agreement that these two factors described by Marx are the absolutely essential detennining features of the AMPnot the absence of private property in land, as has often been ascribed to 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 ."49 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' Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and translated by Ben Fowkes. (New York: Vintage Books, l976), pp. 477-478; 479

46 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of The Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), p. 122

49 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

~arlMarx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 3. Edited by Frederick Engels. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), pp. 786-787 deny that Asiatic society has known changes, even substantial changes; he only denies that those changes made any difference to its economic basis, that they ever revolutionised its mode of producti~n."~~In the Grundrisse, Marx noted that "The Asiatic form necessarily hangs on most tenaciously and for the longest tirne. This is due to its presupposition that the individual does not becorne independent vis-A-vis the commune; that there is a self-sustaining circle of production, unity of agriculture and manufactures, etc ."'' This tenacity and extreme stability in the basic production relations lead to "...retardecidevelopment, which in the end proved fatal to the nations based on this mode of production ."54

How did societies based upon the AMP succeed in maintaining and preserving their basic production relations far longer and more successfully than those societies based upon other modes of production such as Feudalism or slavery? In other words, why did the West get its crucial lead over Asia on the road to capitalism in the first place? This question is al1 the more puzzling, given the fact that the AMP contained many of the

'' 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 the Critique of Political Economy) . Translated by Martin Nicolaus. (Kamondswo~h:Penguin Books Ltd., 1973), p. 406 'key ingredientsf, so to speak, of 'progressr. Certainly, the form of the self-sufficient village communes ruled by a despotic state structure is one clue which points towards delayed development. However, some authors have pointed out that the AMP was a class society. Melotti has argued that in fact, the AMP possessed a fairly developed class structure: ",..as well as State officiais and peasants, there were landed proprietors, who had

illegally appropriated land at times when the central authority was weak, and there were sometimes immensely rieh bankers and mer chant^..!'^^ To understand why these clearly defined classes

never came into open conflict with each other-or at least not to

a sufficient intensity to help 'pushr history along as in

Europe-we do not need to postulate or ascribe a 'primitivenessl

or simplicity to Asia as many Eurocentric theorists do. Melotti

asks: 'If the (AMP) really had been 'inferior' ...to the classical

or feudal modes, it is hard to understand how there could have

been such a flowering of religion, art, science and philosophy

in the Asiatic framework in India, China, Egypt, Mesopotamia,

Persia, Arabia and elsewhere ."56

The AMP was a far more complex social formation than has

often been acknowledged by most Western historians (Joseph

54 Ernest Mandel, The Formation of The Economic Thaught of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 19711, p. 123

55 Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), p. 103 Needham being one very clear exception to this). Krader points out that

...the Asiatic mode of production is far from primitive, but contains the same relations and moments of political economy and society as are contained in the capitalist: in both, commodities are exchanged and produced, capital is fomed. These relations are mare fully brought out in modern political society, bourgeois society, which is the most highly developed and most many-sided organization of production in history. This is the major theme in Marx's Capital. They are already evident, although not in so high a degree, in the Asiatic mode of production, which belongs in the same category of political economy and society as the capitalist .'' Marx, however, assigned a 'subordinate' role to commodity production within the AMP:

In the ancient Asiatic, Classical-antique, and other such modes of production, the transformation of the product into a commodity, and therefore men's existence as producers of commodities, plays a subordinate role, which however increases in importance as these communities approach nearer and nearer to the stage of their diss~lution.~~

In his view, commodity production failed ta achieve a central role in the economy of the AMP since

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 Political 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 Political 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 Political Economy, Volume 1. Introduced by Emest Bande1 and translated by Ben Fowkes. (New York: Vintage ~ooks,1976), p. 132 other prerequisites of capitalist production are present does usury become one of the means assisting in establishment of the new mode of production by ruining the feudal lord and small-scale producer, on the one hand, and centralising the conditions of labour into capital, on the other. 61

There are two key, interrelated factors which serve to explain why, despite the existence of classes, commodity production and usury, etc., the AMP managed to preserve its basic production relations (in the fom of the village communes and common ownership of the land) and remain largely unchanged for centuries. On the one hand, the artificial and secondary nature of the cities within Asiatic society rneant that the cities and towns in these societies never managed to economically and politically dominate the countryside in the manner or extent that the European towns did within Eeudal societies. On the other hand, the despotic state exercised too strong a rule and tao dominant a role over al1 of the most important political and economic aspects of Asiatic society for a true civil society or 'public spherer to arise similar to those which eventually developed in Europe.

The towns and cities of Asiatic society were generally nothing more than artificial creations of the state superimposed upon the countryside from above. It is the Asiatic state's unwavering economic and political control over these 'artificial

Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 3. Edited by Frederick Engels. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), pp. 5 96-5 97 creationsr which explains why these towns and cities could not develop into the islands of private property that their European

counterparts managed to become. They remained largely

economically and politically dependent upon the state for

survival. An embryonic bourgeois class would have been unable to

arise, much less develop any measure of political or economic

autonomy , this situation. Melotti pointed out that Marx 'did

not regard the Asiatic agglomerations as true cities, but only

as 'royal camps' without a true productive function...( which were incapable of) providing the basis of a 'civil society' ...or an urban culture existing independently of the ruling ~ystem."~~In

Volume 3 of Capital, Marx had obsenred that

It is in the nature of things that as soon as town industry as such separates from agricultural industry, its products are from the outset commodities and thus require the mediation of commerce for their sale. The leaning of commerce towaras the development of towns, and, on the other hand, the dependence of toms upon commerce, are so far natural.

But this separation of town-based industry and agriculture never

took place-at least not to a sufficient degree-in Asiatic

society, due to the self-sufficient nature of the village

communes and to the artificial and secondary nature of the towns

and cities, which were dominated from above by the state.

Godelier observed that "in so far as the statefs exploitation of

Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), p. 101 the communities takes the form of a massive levy of revenue in kind, the structures of production can stabilise since there is no incentive to create a market... these forms of exploitation can be so intense that they hold back the development of production for a long time."64 This meant that generalized commodity production (production for exchange) could not begin to take place and thus, production remained essentially production of use-values ('destined for direct use by the community itselfr).

As Mandel pointed out, '...it is the developrnent of the production of exchange values in the toms that makes possible preparation for the predominance of capital ."65 In this situation, even the most massive amounts of luxury production and private trade carried out on behalf of the Asiatic despot and the royal court, and "even the very greatest accumulation of sums of money did not lead to a process of capital ac~umulation."~~In sum, "the

Marxian description of Asiatic cities evokes a parasitical

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 them. " 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 ta 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., lgï7), p. 101 general becomes a ~omodity."~'~he 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 oriental commune. This large-scale privatization of land could begin to take place, along with the dissolution of the AMP, only when the Asiatic state could no longer continue its political and economic domination over society. In addition, once they were freed from their economic subservience to the Asiatic state, the towns and cities could begin to reassume, on a greatly accelerated pace and scale, their previously suppressed roles as centers of private property, trade, commerce, commodity production and, eventually, capital accumulation:

Historically, private property by no means makes its appearance as the result of robbery or violence. On the contrary. It already existed, even though it was limited to certain abjects, in the ancient primitive communes of al1 civilised peoples. It developed even within these communes, at first through barter with strangers, till it reached the form of commodities. The more the products of the commune assumed the commodity form, that is, the less they were produced for their producers' own use and the more for the purpose of exchange, the more the original primitive division of labour was replaced by exchange also within the commune, the more did inequality develop in the property of the individual members of the commune, the more deeply was the ancient common ownership of the land undermined, and the more rapidly did the commune move towards its dissolution and transformation into a village of srna11 peasants. For thousands of years Oriental depotism (sic) and the changing rule of conquering nomad peoples were unable to change this old form of commune; it saw the gradua1 destruction of their original home industry by the competition of products of large-scale industry which brought them nearer and nearer to dissol~tion.~~

Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., l977), p. 103

70 Frederick Engels, Anti-Duhrinq: Herr Eugen DuhringCs Revolution in 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 Asiatic Mode of Production: Science and Politics. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 19811, p. 265; Hal Draper is another author who adopted this viewpoint. He declared that "It was Marx who fixst stated that the mode of production which Europeans had discovered in Asia in modern times had also existed in the prehistory of European society, that the Asiatic mode of production had to be considered a more or less world-wide development, even though it had taken different paths in different regions and had fossilized in one of them." Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution Volume 1: State 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 of the strongest dues for a multilinear interpretatian of historical materialism ends up being used by Gadelier as its very opposite. It should also be noted that the defenders of a universalized AMP must ignore al1 of Marx and Engels' assertions that the AMP actually survived up until the 1800's and the beginning of capitalist kruslons into the pke-capitalist world. This issue is examined in greater detail in 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., lgil), 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., Nii), p. 57 Chaptar 3: The Placa of the Asiatic Mode of Production Within Historical Materialam

A Klee painting named Angelus Noms shows an ange1 looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The ange1 would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the ange1 can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we cal1 progress .'

The AMP is a clearly defined concept which played an important role and remained integral to Marx and Engels' version of historical materialism. Zndeed, the AMP remains an essential component of the theory today. Thus, the question of whether or not the two authors eventually abandoned or rejected the validity of the concept has become a largely academic issue, given that renewed research and interest in how specific social formations fit into the overall historical process has led to a greatly increased understanding of the importance of the AMP to

Marxism. The question is no longer whether or not the AMP exists

------Walter Benjamin, 'Theses on the Philosophy of Kistory." In Bronnex, Stephen Eric and Douglas Mackay Kellner, editors. Critical 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 the most misunderstood and misused words in Marxist theory. A discussion of the tem, and the many uses and abuses of it, is beyond the scope of this thesis. It is sufficient to point out that any theory which daims to accurately represent a truly dialectical interaction between a 'real objectr (such as the human or natural world) and the comprehension of this object in thought and practice, must, by definition, be constantly revised to reflect in thought the forms of motion of the 'realr . A theory which fails to accomplish this step ossifies into ideology and becomes a static and undialectical body of eternal, fixed 'truthsf . "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 relation to the class forces in revolutionary France.' This was due to a specific historical situation in which highly peculiar circumstances (most notably, a set of social classes had which had fought themselves to a more or less balanced stalemate) had conspired to give the state an appearance of complete, instead of relative, autonomy. Marx noted that under Bonapartism, "the state seem (ed) to have made itself completely independent ."' He hastened to add however, that "the state power is not suspended in mid air" and that ultimately, Bonapartism was the particular historical manifestation of a definite class within French

Society.' It can be seen, in this example, how Marx was often willing to give due emphasis to superstructural determinants in historical explanation. On the other hand, Engels, in his letter to Franz Mehring on July 14, 1893, explained that ...we al1 laid, and were bound to lay, the main emphasis, in the first place, on the derivation of political, juridical and other ideological notions, and of actions arising through the medium of these notions, frorn basic economic facts. But in so doing we neglected the formal side-the ways and means by which these notions, etc., come about-for the sake of the content.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works. (Moscaw: Progress Publishers, 1968), pp. 95-180

' Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works. [Moscow : Progress Publishers, l968), p. 171 a Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works . (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968), pp. 170-171

Karl Mam, Frederick Engels and 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

Karl 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 life..he proves, at the same the, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and it is a matter of indifference whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious of it or not. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence... 15 Conscious human intervention in the historical process seems rather useless, if not completely impossible, in this deterministic and teleological conception of history.

And yet Marx and Engels often stressed with equal, if not greater fervor, the idea that history was open-ended and non- teleological, that in the last instance, it was a product of conscious human intervention and class struggle. It has already been noted, in the previous chapter, that the establishment of capitalist production relations through the expropriation of the land upon which the primitive communes were iounded was a process that had to be set in motion through the conscious actions and political intervention of a definite class of exploiters. As Marx declared in the Grundrisse:

The original conditions of production,..ca~ot themselves originally be products-results of production, It is not the unity of living and active humanity with the natural, inorganic conditions of their metabolic exchange with nature, and hence their appropriation of nature, which requires explanation

'' Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume I. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and translated by Ben Fawkes, (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), pp. 100-LOI; Marx was in such full agreement with Kau£inanrs characterization of his method that he was moved to declare ".-what else is (the reviewer) depicting but the dialectical method?" or is the result of a historic process, but rather the separation between these inorganic conditions of human existence and this active existence, a separation which is completely posited only in the relation of wage-labour and capital. l6

In short, the original conditions of capitalist production had to be consciously created and this required a vicious, prolonged and ultimately one-sided process of class struggle. In Volume 1 of Capital, Marx had clearly emphasized the consciously organized and planned nature of this large-scale thievery:

The process, therefore, which creates the capital- relation can be nothing other than the process which divorces the worker from the ownership of the conditions of his own labour; it is a process which operates two transformations, whereby the social means of subsistence and production are turned into capital and the immediate producers are turned into wage-labourers. So-called primitive accumulation, therefore, is nothing else than the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production... these newly freed men becarne sellers of themselves only after they had been robbed of al1 their own means of production, and al1 the guarantees of existence afforded by the old feudal arrangements. And this history, the history of their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire."

This carries profound implications for the socialist project.

For if capitalist production relations were originally created through class struggle and not by blind economic forces working independently beyond human intervention, then it is al1 the more

L6 Karl Marx, Grundrisse (Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy). Translated by Martin Nicolaus. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., l973), p. 489

'' KarL Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and translated 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 out~orne.*~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 Istvan Meszaros, 'The Nature of Historical Determination." Critique 30-31 (1998), p. 98

Unfortunately, this does not mean that a conscious and planned intervention will necessarily lead to the correct, desired end. Marx's proviso that we cannot base our opinion of an individual on what she thinks of herself, or judge a period of historical transformation by its own consciousness holds true. In "Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy", Engels declared that "in spite of the consciously desired aims of al1 individuals, accident apparently reigns on the surface. That which is willed happens but rarely; in the majority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and conflict with one another, or these ends themselves are from the outset incapable of realisation or the means of attaininq them are insufficient. Thus the conflicts of innumerable individual wills and individual actions in the domain of history produce a state of affairs entirely analogous to that prevailing in the realnt of unconscious nature. The ends of the actions are intended, but the results which actually follow from these actions are not intended; or when they do seem to correspond to the end intended, they ultimately have consequences quite other than those intended." Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and V. 1. Lenin. On Historical 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 also repeated the exact sarne idea of history as an infinite clash of individual, conflicting wills in his letter to Joseph Bloch on September 21, 1890. He also discussed the 'colossal disproportion between the proposed aims and the results arrived at" by human attempts to influence the course of history in the introduction to his Dialectics of Nature. Frederick Engels, Dialectics of Nature. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 198 6) , p. 35

2' Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism: Aqainst Bruno Bauer and Company. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 110

22 Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and V. 1. Lenin, On Historical 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 the also

'determined determinantsl." 24 He clarified 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 Istvan Meszaros, editor* Aspects of History and Class Consciousness. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1971), p. 87; Meszaros' formulation echoes the one advanced by Althusser in "Contradiction and Overdetermination": "the economic dialectic is never active in the pure state; in History, these instances, the superstructures, etc.-are never seen to step respectfully aside when their work is done or, when the Time comes, as his pure phenornena, to scatter before His Majesty the Economy as he strides along the royal road of the Dialectic. From the first moment to the last, the lonely hour of the 'last instance' never cornes." Louis Althusser, For Mam. Translated by Ben Brewster. (London: New Left 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 fa~ts."~~This was also the gist of Engelst criticism of Eugen

Duhringts obfuscating depiction of Marx's historical method. In response to Duhring's charge that Marx had to rely on the

'dialectical crutchesl of the Hegelian negation of the negation to prove that 'the knell of capitalist private property will eventually soundr and that a socialist revolution will inevitably 'expropriate the expropriators', Engels clarified that

In characterising the process as the negation of the negation, therefore, Marx does not dream of attempting to prove by this that the process was historically necessary. On the contrary: after he has proved from history that in fact the process has partially already occurred, and partially must occur in the future, he then also characterises it as a process nhich develops in accordance with a definite dialectical law. That is all. It is therefore once again a pure distortion of the facts by Herr Duhring, when he declares that the negation of the negation has to serve as the midwife to deliver the future from the wornb of the past..."

It is not the historical process which must obey the dialectic but the very opposite. Thus, historical materialism can offer no guarantees concerning the future course and form of historical development. Instead, the theory had to be capable of taking into account and providing an adequate explanation for the 'forms of motiont of the real world in order for it to maintain bath its theoretical (or predictive) as well as

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.=' Stalinfs 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

Al1 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, Review 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 manrs 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 "constitute(s) the bedrock for Cohen's interpretation of historical materialism." Zaheer Baber, Review of ~he-Violenceof 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 (lggl), P. 247; William Shaw, Marxf s Theory of History. (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1978), pp. 55-57, 77-91, 97-103

37 William Shaw, Marxts Theory of History. (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1978), p. 53

38 William Shaw, Marxf s Theory of History. (Stanford, California: 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 fon only a single moment of. 40

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 Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. (London: Verso, 19851, p. 20

'' There is a very sizable amount of material pertaining to Laclau and Mouffe's political project. In the present author's opinion, Norman Geras' powerful critique is still one of the best. Norman Geras, 'Post-Marxism?" New Left Review 163 (May-June, 1987) , 40-82 of teleolagy" which serves as a "guarantee of future transitionsff. The strength of the Marxist theory of history has never been based upon its so-called predictivé poners-or its ability to guarantee the future course of historical pragress itself and (other than in its Stalinized incarnation) has never been presented as such. The Dialectic, as Engels clarified to

Duhring, is not "a proof-producing" mechanism. Rather, Lukacs observed that Marxist theory derived its power fxom its ability to grasp cornplex, interrelated phenomena as a coherent and unified t~talit~.~~Relating this to the question of necessary historical developments, one finds that "the goneral theory of historical materialism requires only that there should be a succession of modes of production, though not necessarily any particular modes, and perhaps not in any particular predetermined arder."46 Hobsbawm adds that even if Marx " had been mistaken in his observations, or if these had been based on partial and therefore misleading information, the general theory

45 "ft is not the primacy of economic motives in historical exphnation that constitutes the decisive difference between Marxism and bourgeois thought, but the point of view of totality." Georg Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, lgil), p. 27

46 Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations. Edited with an introduction by E.J. Hobsbawm. (New York: International Publishers, 1964 ) , pp. 19-20

47 Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Econo~cFormations. Edited with an introduction by E.J. Hobsbawm. (New York: International Publishers, 1964), p. 20; Hobsbawm is echoing Lukacs' famous statement £rom History and Class Consciousness : " Orthodox Marxism, therefore, does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the 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: Atmust 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 the 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

At 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 hist~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 society cornes to an end."51 What else but a unilinear interpretation could Marx have had in mind when he declared "No social order ever perishes before al1 the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed"? But is this really the interpretation Marx had in mind? It would be easy to answer in the affirmative if it were not for the 'problematict presence of the AMP in the CPE preface.

The conceptual dilemma presented by the CPE preface and its various possible interpretations was succinctly summarized by Brendan OOLeary as follows:

-.it is uncertain whether Marx intended his list to describe either the necessary, programmed and chronologically ordered list of modes of production through which al1 societies (or alternatively, humanity as a whole) must travel; or the modes of production which have in fact existed in world history, sometimes simultaneously, but are distinguishable from each other by the degree of economic developrnent which they facilitated. '*

There are two cornpletely different but interrelated unilinear interpretations which tend to get conflated in any discussion of the listing of modes of production presented by

Marx in the CPE preface. Both interpretations, it will be

argued, are invalidated and refuted by the existence of the AMP.

On the one hand, there is the interpretation which holds

that each separate historical stage or mode of production listed

Jorge Larrain, A Reconstruction of Historical Materialism. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986) , p. 24

52 Brendan OtLeary, The Asiatic Mode of Production: Oriental Despotism, Eiistorical Materialism and Indian Kistory. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell Ltd, , 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 this interpretation "has been Mamist orthodoxy for much of the twentieth century" there is, at the same the, "ao positive warrant for this interpretation in 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 latterrs 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: 1nternational 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 logical order, based on the level of development reached by the productive forces and relations in each particular

~ociety."~'That Marx had a logical ordering in mind was made explicitly clear by Engels in hi3 1859 review of the CPE:

History moves often in Leaps and bounds and in a zigzag line, and as this would have to be followed throughout it would mean not only that a considerable amount of marerial of slight importance would have to be included, but also that the train of thought would frequently have tu be interrupted... The logical method of approach was therefore the only suitable one. This, however, is indeed nothing but the historical method, only stripped of the historical fom and chance occurrences, 59

The second interpretation, which essentially universalizes the stages outlined in the CPE preface as definite moments in the histories of al1 societies, is equally problernatic. In the first place, Marx and Engels had often criticized those particular interpretations of historical materialism which sought to generalize the histories of certain nations (most often, England's) into universal laws of historical development

Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), pp. 14-15; Many authors have advanced similar interpretations. Hobsbawm asserted that the stages outlined by Marx in the CPE preface are "analytical, though not chronolagical, stages (of) evolution." Karl Mam, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations. Edited with an introduction by E.J. Kobsbawn. (New York: International Publishers, 1964), p. 37; Mandel likewise criticized the unilinear interpretation of the CPE preface. Ernest Mandel, The Formation of The Economic Thought of Karl Marx. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 19711, @p. 131- 132

59 Quoted in Umberto Melotti, Marx and the Third World. (London: The MacMillan Press, Ltd., 1977), p. 6 applicable everywhere and at al1 times. In his criticism of Friedrich Listts6* 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-capitalist 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 introduction by E.J. Hobsbawm. (New York: International Publishers, 19641, p. 61

This was a point Marx and Engels asserted in numerous instances. In his very first public commentary on India, Marx had declared that "Howeoe~changing the political aspect of India's past must appear, its social condition has rmained unaltered since its remotest antiquity, until the first dectnnium of the nineteenth century." Karl Marx, Surveys from Exile: Political Writinqs: Volume2. Edited by David Fernbach. (London: Penguin Classics, 1992), p. 304; In a letter to Engels on June 14, 1853, he observed how "these idyllic republics,still exist in a fairly perfecr fom in the North-western parts of India which have only recently fallen into 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: International Publishers, 1942), p. 70; Marx also pointed out, in the Grundrisse, that "The Asiatic form necessarily hangs on most tenaciously and for the longest time." Karl Marx, Grundrisse (Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy). Translated by Martin Nicolaus. (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1973), p. 486; He also observed, in Volume 1 of Capital, "that communal property in its natural, spontaneous fom..is the primitive form that we can prove to have existed among Romans, Teutons and Celts, and which indeed still exists to this day in India..!' and again made reference to "those small and extremely ancient Indian communities.,which continue to exist to this day,!, Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume -1. Introduced by Ernest Mandel and translated by Ben Fowkes. (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), pp. 171 and 477, respectively; Engels likewise pointed out, in Anti-Duhrinq, that "The old primitive communities...( remained) in existence for thousands of years-as in India and among the Slavs up to the present day-before intercourse with the outside world (led to their destruction)" and also that "for thousands of years Oriental depotism (sic) and the changing rule of conquering nomad -peoples - were unable to change this old form of commune..!' Frederick Engels, Anti-Duhring: H& Eugen Duhringrs Revolution in Science. (New York: International Publishers, 1939), pp. 165 and 180, respectively; In "On Social Relations in Russia", which was published in 1875, ~ngelsstill maintained that "in India a whole series of forms of communal property has been in existence down to the present time." Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works [in Two Volumes) Volume 11. (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 19491, p. 52

64 It was Trotsky who brilliantly noted that this \skipping of stages' and the 'zigzag motion of historical development' was nothing but the universal (or normal) form of motion of capitalism in particular, and historical development in general, in the age of Imperialism. He went on to deduce the correct revolutionary strategy from these observations through his formulations of the Law of Uneven and Combined Development and the Theory of Permanent Revolution, respectively. 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 multilinear 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 Marxts Theory of Revolutian, Volume 1: State and Bureaucracy. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977), p. 539

66 It must be reiterated that Melottirs 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 Asiatic Mode of Production: Oriental Despotism, Historical Materialism and Indian History. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil 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 conclusion which was destined to have a happy ending as certainly as the Stalinist night would eventually become day. In

1926, in a speech defending Socialism in One Country, Stalin asked if the USSR could

remain the mighty centre of attraction for the workers of al1 countries that it undoubtedly is now, if it is incapable of achieving victory at home over the capitalist elements in Our economy, the victory of socialist construction? 1 think not. But does it not follow from this that disbelief in the victory of socialist construction, the dissemination of such disbelief, will lead to Our country being discredited as the base of the world revol~tion?'~

It seems clear that at least part of the reason that the

USSR remained a "mighty centre of attraction for the workers of

countries" for a good part of the 20'" century was precisely the idea of historical inevitability that a Stalinist

'interpretation' of Marxist theory propagated. As twisted, deformed and perverted Stalinism became in practice, it could, and did, seek refuge in the idea that the USSR, and the international communist movement, was on the winning side of what Isaac Deutscher once called "the great contest". Despite al1 the trials and tribulations it subjected the international working class to, Stalinism remained-in the eyes of generations of workers, revolutionaries and intellectuals-the only historical route beyond capitalism. 1 argue that a certain measure of a continued adherence to this (for lack of a bettes

'' Michael Lowy, The Politics 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 for the possibility of totalitarian contra1 over society. Herbert Marcuse's reply to Popper is quite instructive:

Contemporary society is increasingly functioning as a rational whole which overrides the life of its parts, progresses through planned waste and destruction, and advances with the irresistible force of nature-as if governed by inexorable laws. Insistence on these irrational aspects is not betrayal of the liberalistic tradition, but the attempt to recapture it. The 'holisml which has become xeality must be met by a 'holist' critique of this reality. 74

'' One wonders if OPLeary has ever caught a unilinear theory of history in the act of unifying humanity.

'4 Herbert Marcuse, "Karl Popper and the Problem of Bistorical Laws." in Studies in Critical 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 ta 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 .'

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