Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2009
Marx's interpretation of China enriched his concept of a completely Asiatic society. While dealing with England's relation to the Far East, he became aware that in imperial China, unlike in other oriental countries, land was privately held. His analysis of this seeming exception to the rule is unsatisfactory, but it is indicative of his socio-historical position. He continued to view China as a major case of “Asiatic production” even after he learned that there communal landed property had long been abolished.
1 They indicated its early appearance by occasionally referring to it as “old” Asiatic society. See Marx, Karl, Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Okonomie, 3 vols. (Hamburg: Otto Meissner, 1919), I, pp. 45, 297Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Marx, DK); cf. idem, Zur Kritik der politischen Okonomie (Stuttgart: 8th ed. 1921), pp. 124, 133, 161 (hereafter cited as Marx, ZK).Google Scholar
2 Marx, Karl, Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Okonomie (Rohentwurf) 1857–1858 (Berlin: Dietz, 1953)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Marx, GK), pp. 392 et seq.; idem, DK II, p. 455; Engels, Friedrich, Herrn Eugen Dührings Unwälzung der Wissenschaft. Dialektik der Natur 1873–1882 (Moscow: Marx-Engels-Verlag, 1935), pp. 184et seq. 395Google Scholar; idem, Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staats (Stuttgart: 20th ed., 1921), p. 162.Google Scholar
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5 Ritter, 1834, pp. 723et seq.Google Scholar
6 See his letter of March 10, 1853, to Engels (MEGA III, 1, p. 455).
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14 Werke, Marx-Engels, I, 6, p. 530.Google Scholar
15 Ibid., VII, p. 222. This passage appears at the end of a “Revue” written by Marx and Engels for their Neue Rheinische Zeitung; it is dated “London, 01 31, 1850.”Google Scholar
16 Marx, Karl, “Articles” in New York Daily Tribune, 06 14, 1853Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Marx, NYDT). For the date of writing see Karl Marx, Chronik Seines Lebens in Einzeldaten (Moscow: Marx-Engels-Lenin-Institut, 1934), p. 139.Google Scholar
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21 Ibid. pp. 87 et seq.
22 Ibid. p. 56.
23 Ibid. pp. 56, 73.
24 Ibid. p. 64 (NYDT, 10 5, 1858), pp. 87, 90Google Scholaret seq., 91 et seq. (NYDT, 12 3, 1859).Google Scholar
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26 So Marx in his most famous theoretical pronunciamento which he made in 1859 at the close of the period under discussion (Marx, , ZK, p. lv).Google Scholar
27 Mane's letter of June 14, 1853, to Engels (MEGA III, 1, p. 487).Google Scholar
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33 Ibid. p. 322.
34 Ibid. p. 323.
35 Marx and Engels insisted that the outer world, in which man operated, was not a constant phenomenon, but a “historical product,” that is, something that changed with the activity of man (Marx, and Engels, , “Die Deutsche Ideologie,”Google ScholarMEGA I, 5, pp. 32et seq.).Google Scholar
36 Marx, , DK, I, p. 478.Google Scholar For regressive elements in these formulations—regressive compared with Marx's position in the fifties—see Wittfogel, Karl A., Oriental Despotism (Yale Un. Press, 1957) (hereafter cited as Wittfogel 1957), pp. 381et seq.Google Scholar
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41 Arbeiten der Kaiserlich russischen Gesandtschaft zu Peking über China, sein Volk, seine Religion, seine Institutionen, socialen Verhältnisse, Erster Band (Berlin: 1858).Google Scholar The first essay, “Über das Grundeigentum in China von J. Sacharoff,” is presented in pp. 1–43.Google Scholar For references to irrigation canals as an essential part of China's traditional agriculture see Sacharoff, , 1858, pp. 6, 13, 39Google Scholar; for a description of the old communal land system see op. cit., pp. 5 et seq.; for later attempts to reinstitute this system see op. cit., pp. 15 et seq.; for the ultimate establishment of private land-ownership, which, according to the author, had prevailed during the preceding thousand years, see op. cit., pp. 20 et seq.
42 Manuscript of Das Kapital, Volume III, NM, 282.Google Scholar For help in deciphering this sentence I am indebted to Dr. W. Blumenberg of the Amsterdam International Institute of Social History, which possesses the bulk of Marx's and Engels' manuscripts.
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44 Ibid. III, 2, p. 324.
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47 Ibid. p. 453.
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53 Ibid. p. 395. For this translation of Mencius see Legge, James, The Chinese Classics, 7 vols. (Oxford: 1893–1895), II, pp. 250et seq.Google Scholar
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60 Ibid. p. 81.
61 Plechanow, G. W., Kunst und Litteratur, trans, by Harhammer, Joseph (Berlin: Dietz, 1955) (hereafter cited as Plekhanov 1955), p. 574 Russia, of course, was no river valley despotism.Google Scholar
62 Plekhanov, G., Selected Philosophical Works, 5 vols. (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, no date), I, pp. 441Google Scholaret seq. In a speech he made a few months after the publication of the just-cited article he criticised certain eager and well-meaning writers who viewed Russia as “a kind of European China, whose economic structure has nothing in common with that of Western Europe.” They overlooked that “the old economic foundations of Russia are now undergoing a process of complete disintegration” (Ibid. pp. 451, 453).
63 Plekhanov 1890/91, pp. 440 et seq.
64 Ibid. p. 447.
65 Plechanow, G., “Zu Hegel's Sechzigstem Todestag,” Die Neue Zeit, X (1892), p. 240.Google Scholar
66 Ibid. pp. 241 et seq.
67 Kautsky, 1935, p. 283.Google Scholar
68 Ibid. p. 301.
69 Plekhanov, G., The Development of the Monist View of History (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1956), p. 199.Google Scholar
70 Ibid. p. 160.
71 Plekhanov, 1955, p. 690.Google Scholar Following Marx and Engels, Plekhanov considered the Crimean War and the Emancipation of the serfs the starting point in Russia's economic “European” development.
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77 Ibid. IV, 1, p. 65.
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79 Plekhanov, G. V., Dnevnik Sotsial-Demokrata (Diary of a Social Democrat), No. 5, 03 1906, p. 12 (hereafter cited as Plekhanov 1906).Google Scholar
80 Ibid. pp. 12 et seq. In the context of his argument, which is historically faulty, Plekhanov referred to the account of these actions given by the anarchist geographer Reclus, who, he believed, had based himself on Sakharov. Plekhanov's assumption is not confirmed by Reclus' bibliography, but it suggests that Plekhanov knew Sakharov's account of Chinese land tenure, which we mentioned above.
81 Plekhanov, 1906, p. 14.Google Scholar
82 Cf. Marx's thesis that Peter “generalised” the policy of Tatarised Muscovy (Marx, Karl, “Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the 18th Century,” The Free Press, 02 25 and 04 1, 1857).Google Scholar
83 Plekhanov, 1906, pp. 14et seq.Google Scholar
84 Ibid. p. 17.
85 Ibid.
86 Protokoly Obyedinitelnago Syezda Rossyskoi Sotsialdemokraticheskoi Rabochei Partii (Protocols of the Unification Congress of the R.S.D.R.P. held in Stockholm, 1906), Moscow, 1907, p. 44.Google Scholar
87 Ibid. p. 43.
88 Ibid. p. 44.
89 Ibid. p. 116.
90 Lenin, , Werke, X, p. 332.Google Scholar
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93 Ibid. IV, p. 300.
94 Ibid. IV, pp. 305 et seq.
95 Ibid. IV, p. 308.
96 Ibid. IV, p. 308, italics in original
97 Ibid. IV, p. 306, italics added.
98 Ibid. IV, p. 307, italics added.
99 Lenin, V. I., The National Liberation Movement in the East (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1957), p. 53.Google Scholar
100 Ibid. pp. 59 et seq.
101 Ibid. p. 76.
102 Ibid. p. 73.
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104 Ibid. XXXVIII, p. 306.
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