249

COMMUNICATION MORGAN'S INFLUENCE ON MARX: THE QUESTION OF ASIATIC SOCIETY

Guram Koranashvili

The critical aspect of the problem of precapitalist social-economic formations inheres in understanding the views of Marx and Engels on Oriental-Asiatic society, especially the question concerning the degree of change in their perspective after their acquaintance with L.H. Morgan's theory about tribal organization in general. However, as is well known, on this problem there are great differences of opinion and that, evidently, greatly hampers our understanding of the character and sequence of the precapitalist phases in world history. There is no doubt that their acquaintance with the Morgan theory changed the opinions of Marx and Engels on the precapitalist evolution of society; but the question is what kind of changes they were, whether they concerned the main thrust of their classic approach to Asiatic society or only certain aspects of their views. These circumstances are discussed in different ways in the literature. According to some authors (V.N. Nififorov, B.F. Forshnev, J.V. Kachanovski, T.M. Diakonov, for example) after becoming acquainted with the Morgan theory Marx and Engels abandoned their previous "hypothesis" about Eastern society as being, at base, primitive, communist and thus the whole conception about the Asiatic mode of production lost its logical-historical anchor. In the opinion of these authors, in surrendering the idea about the specific charGuram Koranashvili is a Soviet Georgian anthropologist.

0304-4092/80/0000-0000/$02.50

acter of Asiatic society, Marx and Engels accepted the evolution of societies in that mold as involving the same pre-capitalist class formations which were known in the history of Western Europe. In order to confirm their views these investigators rely on the work of Engels The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, along with his introduction to the American edition of The Condi-

tion of The Working Class in England [ 1]. According to others (F. Tokei, E.S. Varga, N.B. Ter-Akopian, L.S. Vasiliev, I.A. Stuchevski, L.S. Gamaiunov, G.A. Bagathuria, E. Hobsbawm, Sh. Avineri and others), Marx and Engels, after becoming acquainted with Morgan's theory concerning the tribal system, left their previous ideas on Asiatic society unchanged. But the authors enumerated above silently avoid the difficulty of interpreting the classics of the historical materialism of the 1880's (used by V.N. Nikiforov, B.F. Porshnev and others) for the conclusion at which they arrive. In the opinion of M. Godelier and J. SuretCanale, Engels, on writing The Origin of the Family, changed his mind about the peculiar, specific character of Eastern society because (given the erroneous influence of Morgan) he then categorized Asiatic society under the rubric of a military democracy. According to L. Krader, there is a basic difference between the position Engels took in his work Anti-Duhring and his position of the period when he wrote The Origin of the Family. During the latter period, the previous

9 1980 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company

250 deductions made by Engels about the origin and duration of the rural community, private property (in land) and the state (in the form of Eastern despotism) were put aside. Hence, Krader concludes, there is a momentous difference in the final perspective on Asiatic society adhered to by Marx, as opposed to Engels. But while mentioning the invariability in the basic ideas of Marx about the Asiatic mode of production, Krader does not dwell on the flexibility of Marx on Eastern society as expressed in the outline of his letter to Vera Zasulich (which I will consider below). In K.A. Wittfogel's opinion, Marx and Engels had first suggested their theory about OrientalEastern society, basing it on the Asiatic mode of production, then they abandoned it, because they feared the regeneration of the despotic state in the future communist society, predicated, as was the Asiatic State, on public ownership of the means of production [2]. Among the positions enumerated above, I shall criticize the viewpoints of V.N. Nikiforov, B.F. Forshnev, I.V. Kachanovski and related scholars [3]. As is known, Morgan's book Ancient Society applies primarily to the tribal system, that is to a society based on communal production, equal distribution, lacking exploitation in the basic socio-economic sense, a society, in short, without the state. But Morgan says nothing about Asiatic society, based on the rural communities and "united" from above by political organization. One must doubt that the theory of tribal organization propounded by the America~ ethnologist caused such a radical change in the historical perspective of Marx and Engels that they renounced their previous generalization about the distinctive character of Asiatic society, and concluded that the socio-economic formations in the evolution of the East (and within the East of a great number of distinct societies of a durable civilized character) were identical with those of the West. Marx and Engels simply could not have arrived at such a sweeping conclusion based on the theory of tribal organiza-

tion as put forth by Morgan. For Morgan's work provided no ground for finding slavebased or feudal socio-economic formations in the history of Asia. Not only are historians unable to find the germ of this idea in Morgan's work, but it is absent in Oriental historical sources as well. What the classics in reality derived from Morgan's theory is the notion of the universal distribution of the tribal system including the ancient epoch of history of the East. I shall now focus on the position of Marx in his last years, beginning with the outlines of his letter to Vera Zasulich, written on the 8th of March, 1881. It is necessary to emphasize that this document of Marxian thought has a decided advantage over Engels The Origin of the Family in its contribution to our understanding of the basis of Asiatic society. If, in his "Origin", Engels passes from the tribal system directly to class, slaveholding, and feudal systems, and alludes to the decomposition of the tribal communities (all this, of course, on the model of Western Europe), Marx, in his outline, dwells on the situation wherein the rural communities, displaying extraordinary stability, become the base for Asiatic society. At this time, [4] the uneven character of the communities became clear to Marx, namely, that "the agricultural community" was not the primary formation, but was preceded by a community of more primitive type. The latter was based on extended kinship, communal property, communal production, and equal distribution. In contrast, in "the agricultural community" the principle of kinship is broken, and material production redounds to the separate families. In the context of common property the break appears as well: house and yard appear as the family property but the arable land is in communal possession as before, and periodically it is redivided among the peasant-communers, while the forests and pastures are further secured as public property. But the individualization of production already

251 gives rise to substantial inequality in property, appropriation of products, unequal consumption and accumulation. In the opinion of Marx, this original dualism of "the agricultural community" can be a source of great vitality. The common property in land and the social relations in tension with it - a private house, cultivation of the land by parcels and the private appropriation of the products, the dissolution of extended kin ties and the emergence of the social individual lend a paradoxical stability to the agricultural community. But the same dualism in the further development of the society becomes the source of its disintegration. The accumulation of movable property (cattle, slaves, serf, peasants, money) and the latter's influence on agricultural production, served as corrupting elements on economic and social equality. In the depths of the communities, a conflict of interests takes place which causes a transition from common pastures to private property, private appropriation of forests, and other holdings. Just because of this "the agricultural community" everywhere appears to be the "newest" type of archaic social formation. But it is transitional only in Western Europe, both in ancient and recent times [5], broadly speaking, from the middle ages on. Concerning the mechanism of the decomposition of rural communities, Marx spoke more concretely in his work on pre-capitalist economic formations. According to the conception of this work, the preconditions favouring the decay of the rural community, the "primary community" of the people, include: favourable geographical surroundings (contributing to the individualization of agricultural production), certain historical factors, and the increase of population [ 6]. Thus, in Marx's opinion, "the agricultural community" became a transitional phase from public to private property and, simultaneously, a transitional stage from "primary" to "second-

ary" formations, but only in a delimited historical region, Western Europe. Here, Marx gives'the example of the Germans. In the time of Julius Caesar, they lived in the primitive, tribal form of community based on extended kinship. In the period of Tacitus, this community evolved into the "agricultural" form. As Marx concluded, the Germans had not brought "the agricultural community" from Asia in some ready-made form: it was, on the oontrary, the product of local spontaneous development, which in its turn, after the migration of German peoples, was replaced by the society of private proprietors. In contrast to such a dynamic, "the agricultural community" was widespread in India in the 19th century [7]. Marx also considered Russia and Afganistan [8] to be among those countries wherein "the agricultural communities" provided a wide social base, even in the 19th century. In other polities as well, the isolation of the community, "the localized microcosm", from the outer world, in Marx's opinion, gave birth to a centralized despotism, that is, the political superstructure over the communities. This whole discussion by Marx, relies not on "Ancient Society" but on his and Engels' (and others) prior views on Asiatic society, especially with reference to India. In the interpretation of these questions, Morgan's ideas could contribute little; the prevailing conception of "Oriental society", which was common in European philosophy, historiography and political economy, was unfamiliar to Morgan. "The agricultural community", then, did not uniformly evolve into a "higher" form. If in the history of Western Europe this development occurred twice, in the East such a community maintained its predominant form even during the emergence o f capitalist civilization. Thus, the further evolution of the "agricultural community" is not pre-determined in the same direction as in Western Europe. It's constitutive form admits of alternatives:

252 either the element of private property overcomes the communal or vice-versa. But in the contemporary historical situation, the possibilities do not stop there. The developed capitalist historical environment leads to the possibility of an immediate transition of "the agriculture community" to the highest forms of collectivism (without rigid functioning of the law of the negation of the negation). If in conquered India this transition is hampered, then, according to Marx, it can be more readily accomplished in Russia, a polity that has an independent state organization. Such was the idea of Marx about the tribal system after having studied Morgan's work. This Marxian problematic remains very much alive today, when we so obviously need a concrete notion about the disintegration of the tribal system and the rise of class society. But whatever changes the Marxian view on the tribal system had undergone, they did not nullify the conception of the Asiatic mode of production or support the presentation of the history of Asia by isomorphic phases in Western Europe. Instead of recognizing slaveholding and feudal formations in the history of Asia, Marx began operating with the new notion of "archaic" or "primary" formations, the last stage of which represents ancient Asiatic society based on the rural communities. This formation is then changed from the outside by "the secondary" formations (ancient or slaveholding, feudal and bourgeois societies) [9] based on private property. In 1881 (April-June) Marx summarized the book of the English author S. Phear (The Aryan Village in India and Ceylon) and severely criticizes the author for assuming the existence of feudalism in India. This again proves how Marx re-affirmed his conception of Asiatic society in his understanding of the history of India. (See also Marx's chronological extracts on the history of India, composed in the last years of his life.) Another testimony is the fact that Marx had made no changes in the manuscript of the second and third volumes

of "Capital". (It is worth remembering that Engels did so when publishing these works.) Thus, I conclude that after becoming familiar with Morgan's work on the tribal system, Marx saw no reason to make any radical change in his already developed views on Oriental society. Indeed, following his exposure to Morgan, he more distinctly visualized a real place for "Eastern society" in world evolution: according to him, the tribal system preceded the evolution of Eastern, Ancient ("Western" slaveholding) and German peoples. Thus, under the influence of the theory of the tribal system, Marx modified his views not on Eastern society, the epoch of exploitation in the form of State despotism, but on the epoch of the tribal state [ 10]. Contrary to many authors in the West, Marx was very far from the idea of the development of the archaic societies in a unilinear mold.

NOTES 1 We should note that A.V. Efimov thought "Eastern society" to be equivalent to "tribal-communist" during the previous discussions. See his "Conception of Economic Formations of Marx and Engels and Their Views on the Structure of the Eastern Societies", Istoric Marxist, no. 16 (1930). We should also note that in its time "Eastern society" was considered to be a specific formation by V.V. Struve and this view was re-affirmed by the latter in 1965. See the author's article, "The notion of the Asiatic mode of production", Narodi Azii iAfriki, 1965, 1. 2 This view of Wittfogel is "supplemented" by E. Constas (see her speech at the VII International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnographical Sciences, V, IV, Moscow, 1967, pp. 460-461). In her perspective, the discovery of tribal organization under the conditions of archaic primitive communism by Morgan "reassured" Marx and Engels about the possibility of the restoration

of the democratic organization of primitive communist society in the future developed communist society. Thus, according to Wittfogel and Constas, it turns out that Marx and Engels thought of the future of mankind as a dialectical process. 3 My position on the problem is spelled out in the monograph "Marx and Engels about Precapitalist Formations" (in Georgian), Tbilisi, 1976. 4 The summary of Morgan's work by Marx was made between October, 1880 and the beginning of February, 1881. It is necessary to note that the structure of "Eastern So-

253 ciety" was not a primary condition for Marx and Engels. Already in The German ldeology (see K. Maxx and F. Engels, Soch, v. 3, pp. 20, 65; Soch. v. 46, part I, pp. 4 6 2 - 4 6 3 ) they depicted more primitive economic and social structures. In this respect, Morgan's conception was not absolutely new for Marx and Engels. 5 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., v. 19, pp. 4 0 4 , 4 1 2 , 4 1 3 , 4 1 7 . 6 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., v. 46, part I, pp. 4 6 5 - 4 6 6 . 7 In the opinion of V.N. Nikiforov, in later periods in India, only remnants of the rural communities were observed (see his monograph "The Orient and World History", Moscow, 1975). But according to Marx, Indian society, even in the first half of the last century, represented the system of rural community. And what is more, Marx and Engels derived the despotic form of the state and religion, the specific Asiatic society in India and other Eastern countries from the presence of rural communities. How untrue Kikiforov's suggestion is, can be easily checked

by the book of M.K. Kudriavtsev, The Community and Caste in the Hindustan, Moskow, 1971. While enumerating these countries Marx limited himself only to Indo-European peoples. G.A. Bagathuria is correct when he includes capitalism in the "secondary formation" (see author's article in the collection, "Marx Historian", Moskow, 1968). 10 G.V. Plekhanov in his "Main questions of Marxism" correctly noted that the tribal system was the initial basis of both Eastern and Ancient societies, but discovery of this tribal organization gave no grounds for transplanting the slaveholding and feudal socio-economic formations into the history of the Orient. Further, Plekhanov thought that the Asiatic and Ancient societies were, for Marx, coexistent social forms. 1 should note that these societies (formations) were coexistent only in a chronological sense: in a logical sense, Asiatic society was a predecessor of Ancient (slave-holding) society.

Dialectical Anthropology 5 (1980) 2 4 9 - 2 5 3 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands