A Marxist History of the World Faulkner T02521 00 pre 1 06/03/2013 09:48 Counterfire Series Editor: Neil Faulkner Counterfire is a socialist organisation which campaigns against capitalism, war, and injustice. It organises nationally, locally, and through its website and print publications, operating as part of broader mass movements, for a society based on democracy, equality, and human need. Counterfire stands in the revolutionary Marxist tradition, believing that radical change can come only through the mass action of ordinary people. To find out more, visit www.counterfire.org This series aims to present radical perspectives on history, society, and current affairs to a general audience of trade unionists, students, and other activists. The best measure of its success will be the degree to which it inspires readers to be active in the struggle to change the world. Also available: How a Century of War Changed the Lives of Women Lindsey German Forthcoming: The Second World War: A Marxist History Chris Bambery Faulkner T02521 00 pre 2 06/03/2013 09:48 A Marxist History of the World From Neanderthals to Neoliberals Neil Faulkner Faulkner T02521 00 pre 3 06/03/2013 09:48 First published 2013 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA www.plutobooks.com Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 Copyright © Neil Faulkner 2013 The right of Neil Faulkner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7453 3215 4 Hardback ISBN 978 0 7453 3214 7 Paperback ISBN 978 1 8496 4863 9 PDF eBook ISBN 978 1 8496 4865 3 Kindle eBook ISBN 978 1 8496 4864 6 EPUB eBook Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Simultaneously printed digitally by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, UK and Edwards Bros in the United States of America Faulkner T02521 00 pre 4 06/03/2013 09:48 Contents Introduction: Why History Matters ix 1 Hunters and Farmers 1 c. 2.5 million–3000 BC The Hominid Revolution 2 The Hunting Revolution 4 The Agricultural Revolution 7 The Origins of War and Religion 9 The Rise of the Specialists 12 2 The First Class Societies 15 c. 3000–1000 BC The First Ruling Class 16 The Spread of Civilisation 18 Crisis in the Bronze Age 21 How History Works 23 Men of Iron 25 3 Ancient Empires 28 c. 1000–30 BC Persia: the Achaemenid Empire 29 India: the Mauryan Empire 31 China: the Qin Empire 33 The Greek Democratic Revolution 36 The Macedonian Empire 38 Roman Military Imperialism 41 The Roman Revolution 43 4 The End of Antiquity 46 c. 30 BC–AD 650 The Crisis of Late Antiquity 47 Huns, Goths, Germans, and Romans 50 Mother-Goddesses and Power-Deities 52 Judaism, Christianity, and Islam 54 Arabs, Persians, and Byzantines 57 5 The Medieval World 60 c. AD 650–1500 The Abbasid Revolution 61 Hindus, Buddhists, and the Gupta Empire 63 Chinese History’s Revolving Door 66 Faulkner T02521 00 pre 5 06/03/2013 09:48 vi A MARXIST HISTORY OF THE WORLD Africa: Cattle-Herders, Ironmasters, and Trading States 68 New World Empires: Maya, Aztec, and Inca 70 6 European Feudalism 74 c. AD 650–1500 The Cycles and Arrows of Time 75 The Peculiarity of Europe 77 The Rise of Western Feudalism 79 Crusade and Jihad 81 Lord, Burgher, and Peasant in Medieval Europe 83 The Class Struggle in Medieval Europe 85 The New Monarchies 87 The New Colonialism 89 7 The First Wave of Bourgeois Revolutions 92 1517–1775 The Reformation 93 The Counter-Reformation 96 The Dutch Revolution 99 The Thirty Years War 101 The Causes of the English Revolution 104 Revolution and Civil War 107 The Army, the Levellers, and the Commonwealth 109 Colonies, Slavery, and Racism 111 Wars of Empire 114 8 The Second Wave of Bourgeois Revolutions 117 1775–1815 The Enlightenment 118 The American Revolution 121 The Storming of the Bastille 124 The Jacobin Dictatorship 126 From Thermidor to Napoleon 129 9 The Rise of Industrial Capitalism 132 c. 1750–1850 The Industrial Revolution 133 The Chartists and the Origins of the Labour Movement 135 The 1848 Revolutions 138 What is Marxism? 141 What is Capitalism 143 The Making of the Working Class 146 10 The Age of Blood and Iron 149 1848–1896 The Indian Mutiny 150 The Italian Risorgimento 152 The American Civil War 154 Faulkner T02521 00 pre 6 06/03/2013 09:48 CONTENTS vii Japan’s Meiji Restoration 157 The Unification of Germany 159 The Paris Commune 162 The Long Depression, 1873−96 165 11 Imperialism and War 168 1873–1918 The Scramble for Africa 169 The Rape of China 172 What is Imperialism? 174 The 1905 Revolution: Russia’s Great Dress Rehearsal 177 The Ottoman Empire and the 1908 ‘Young Turk’ Revolution 179 1914: Descent into Barbarism 182 Reform or Revolution? 185 The First World War 188 12 The Revolutionary Wave 191 1917–1928 1917: The February Revolution 192 Dual Power: The Mechanics of Revolution 195 February to October: The Rhythms of Revolution 197 1917: The October Insurrection 200 1918: How the War Ended 202 The German Revolution 205 Italy’s ‘Two Red Years’ 208 World Revolution 209 The First Chinese Revolution 212 Revolts Against Colonialism 214 Stalinism: The Bitter Fruit of Revolutionary Defeat 217 13 The Great Depression and the Rise of Fascism 220 1929–1939 The Roaring Twenties 221 The Hungry Thirties 224 1933: The Nazi Seizure of Power 226 State Capitalism in Russia 229 1936: The French General Strike and Factory Occupations 233 The Spanish Civil War 235 The Causes of the Second World War 238 14 World War and Cold War 242 1939–1967 The Second World War: Imperialism 243 The Second World War: Barbarism 246 The Second World War: Resistance 248 The Cold War 250 The Great Boom 253 Maoist China 255 Faulkner T02521 00 pre 7 06/03/2013 09:48 viii A MARXIST HISTORY OF THE WORLD End of Empire? 258 Oil, Zionism, and Western Imperialism 261 1956: Hungary and Suez 263 Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution 266 15 The New World Disorder 269 1968–present The Vietnam War 270 1968 273 1968–75: The Workers’ Revolt 275 The Long Recession, 1973–92 278 What is Neoliberalism? 281 1989: The Fall of Stalinism 284 9/11, the War on Terror, and the New Imperialism 287 The 2008 Crash: From Bubble to Black Hole 290 The Second Great Depression 292 Conclusion: Making the Future 296 The Wealth of the World 296 The Beast 297 Revolution in the Twenty-First Century? 301 Whose Apocalypse? 302 Timeline 304 Sources 332 Bibliographical Notes 333 Select Bibliography 338 Faulkner T02521 00 pre 8 06/03/2013 09:48 Introduction: Why History Matters History is a weapon. How we understand the past affects how we act in the present. Because of this, history is political and contested. All knowledge of the present – of its crises, wars, and revolutions – is necessarily historical. We can no more make sense of our own world without reference to the past than we can manufacture a computer without reference to the accumulated knowledge of many decades. Our rulers know this, and because they have a vested interest in defending their own property and power, they use their control of education and the mass media to present a sanitised view of history. They stress continuity and tradition, obedience and conformity, nationalism and empire. They purposefully underplay exploitation, the violence of the ruling class, and the struggles of the oppressed. Their version of history has become more dominant over the last 30 years. Past empires, such as the Roman and the British, have been held up as models of civilisation by ‘neo-conservative’ supporters of imperialist wars today. Medieval Europe has been reinterpreted as an exemplar of the ‘new classical’ economics favoured by millionaire bankers. Attempts to construct grand narratives of history – that is, to explain the past, so that we can understand the present, and act to change the future – have been disparaged by fashionable postmodernist theorists who argue that history has no structure, pattern, or meaning. The effect of these ideas is to disable us intellectually and render us politically inert. Do nothing, is the message, because war promotes democracy, there is no alternative to the market, and history cannot be shaped by conscious human action. This book stands in a different tradition. It is encapsulated in something the revolutionary thinker and activist Karl Marx wrote in a political pamphlet published in 1852: ‘Men [and women] make their own history, but not of their own free will, and not under circumstances of their own choosing.’ The course of history, in other words, is not predetermined; things can move in a different direction according to what people do. Nor is history shaped only by politicians and generals; the implication is that if ordinary people organise themselves and act collectively, they too can shape history. This book has its origin in a series first published in weekly instalments on the Counterfire website (www.counterfire.org).