MARXISM lODAY, AUGUST 1 9 6 2 253

Marx already indicated in Capital (vol. 1, p. 325), though very briefly, that

"Peasant agriculture on a small scale, and the carrying on of independent handicrafts, which together form the basis of the feudal mode of pro-duction, and after its dissolution continue side by side with the capitalist mode, also form the economic foundation of the classical communities at their best, after the primitive form of ownership of land in common had disappeared, and before slavery had seized production in earnest." If we follow up this thought of Marx's in the

light of modern knowledge, the slave societies of Greece and Rome appear more and more as exceptional excrescences, a temporary complica-tion and distortion of basically feudal relations due to specific historical conditions.

Engels' observation that slavery accompanies all other forms of exploitation (with, of course, varying degrees of attenuation) will then be seen as very significant for the analysis of historical processes. Today it is abundantly clear that capitalism does not exclude slavery: not only have we seen it practised in its most revolting form in Hitler Germany, in essence it is the basis of the colonial system, and, in the period of rising capitalism, "the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of blackskins" was one of the "chief momenta of primitive accumula-tion" (Capital, vol. 1, p. 775).

Slavery in Africa These considerations will be found of most par-

ticular importance for the destruction of the imperialist myth of "primitive" Africa which stands so prominently in the way of our recogni-tion of the fundamental significance of the African question for the world advance to socialism. I would like to pay tribute here to those writers on African subjects who have helped to destroy part of that myth. In particular, Basil Davidson in his latest book Mother Africa has effectively disposed of the illusion that the slave trade was conducted exclusively by white men who pounced on the unsuspecting "savages" to take them away. In fact, as the sources clearly reveal (e.g. the failure of Master lohn Hawkins to make a business out of this sort of proceedings), the slaves had to be

purchased by way of regular commerce from the African merchants. Slave raiding by whites on the continent itself was the rare exception, not the rule, and slaves procured in this way, being "con-traband", were difficult to dispose of.

This throws quite a difl^erent light on the state of development of African society and the sig-nificance of slavery in Africa at different times. For the ancient period, all we can say with cer-tainty is that slaves were among the exports from tropical Africa both overland and overseas some 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. We do not know how intermittent the trade was, or how deeply it pene-trated into the interior in that distant past, much less have we any basis for asserting that there existed a full-blown sysiciu of slave society com-parable to Greece or Rome.

Although there are indications that the slave trade continued alongside the trade in commodi-ties into the early capitalist era, it seems only in the latter period, when the demand for slaves for the capitalist plantations of America became insistent, that slaves were exported in truly vast numbers. This could not but affect social and economic conditions in Africa. From the 17th century onward our sources show that slaves formed at all events a considerable proportion of the labour forces, in handicrafts as well as in agriculture, but mainly in porterage. In some African states all subjects of a king were auto-matically regarded as his slaves. Payment of tribute was often demanded in the form of slaves. The "production" of slaves for sale became a regular industry and put a .sharp brake on the development of home industries in favour of over-seas imports.

Nevertheless, we will seek in vain here for any but superficial parallels with ancient Greece or Rome. The crucial point is that the trade was organised for the capitalist world market, that, to quote Marx again, it "signalled the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production". Failure to recog-nise this has been responsible for a great deal of misconception about Africa, and it is high time that we approach the study of this problem in the spirit of Marx, and resist attempts to reduce Marxism to a dead letter.

From Feudalism to Capitalism Eric Hobsbawm

O F the various stages of historical develop-ment listed by Marx in the Preface to The Critique of Political Economy the "Asiatic, ancient, the feudal and the modern

bourgeois" modes of production, the feudal and the capitalist have been accepted without serious question, while the existence, or the universality of the other two has been queried or denied.

On the other hand the problem of the transi-tion from feudalism to capitalism has probably

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254 MARXISM TODAY, AUGUST 1962

given rise to more Marxist discussion than any other connected with the periodisation of world history. Thus in the 1950's there took place the well-lcnown international discussion on this point by Paul Sweezy, Maurice Dobb, H. K. Takahashi, Christopher Hill and Rodney Hilton (supplemen-ted by interventions from the late Georges Lefebvre, A Soboul and Giuliano Procacci).i. In the same decade there occurred a lively, but in-conclusive, discussion on the "fundamental law of feudalism" in the USSR, i.e., on the mechanism which necessarily leads feudalism to be replaced by capitalism, as the historic tendency of capital accumulation, in Marx's analysis, leads capitalism to its doom.2 There are no doubt other such dis-cussions, particularly in Asian countries, of which 1 am unfortunately ignorant.

The object of this note is not to provide yet another answer to the questions raised by the transition from feudalism to capitalism, but to fit it into the more general discussion of the stages of social development, which Marxism Today has re-opened. This can perhaps best be done by put-ting forward a few propositions for discussion. (1) The first concerns the universality of feudal-ism. As Joan Simon stated in Marxism Today, June 1962, summarising the recent one-day debate on the subject organised by the journal and the History Group of the Communist Party, the general drift of Marxist discussion in recent decades has tended to widen the scope of "feudal-ism" at the expense of social forms previously classified as primitive-communal, Asiatic, etc.

"In practice this means that 'feudalism', hav-ing become a sort of residuary legatee, now stretches over a vast expansefrom primitive societies up to the triumph of capitalism, which in some countries is in this century, and from China to West Africa, perhaps even to Mexico." (Marxism Today 1962, p. 184.)

Without necessarily agreeing that the present wide scope of "feudalism" is entirely justified, it is clear that it is an extremely widespread social formation. It is true that the precise form of feudahsm varies considerably. The closest parallel to the fully developed European version is no doubt that found in Japanthe similarities are very strikingwhereas in other areas the parallel-ism is rather less close, and in yet others feudal

1 The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism; A Symposium, Fore Publications n.d.; La Pensee Jan.-Feb. 1956: Une discussion historique. Du feodalisme au capitalisme.

2 So far as I know this discussion has not been made available in English, and it appears not to be reflected in the recent Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism.

elements are merely part of a rather differently constituted society. (2) Now it seems clear that under these circum-stances it is very doubtful whether we can speak of a universal tendency of feudalism to develop into capitalism. In fact, of course, it did so only in one region of the world, namely western Europe and part of the Mediterranean area. There is room for argument about whether in certain other areas (e.g., Japan and parts of India) such an evolution would eventually have been completed, by purely internal forces, had not their historic development been interrupted by the intrusion of western capitalism and imperialist powers. We may also debate how far the tendencies towards capi-talism had gone in such areas. (In the case of Japan it may be that the answer to the first ques-tion is "yes" and the answer to the second "very far", but this is a subject on which the non-expert must hesitate to express an opinion). It may also be argued that the tendencies towards such development were present everywhere, though its pace was sometimes so slow as to be negligible. Certainly no Marxist will deny that the forces which made for economic development in Europe operated everywhere, though not necessarily with the same results in difl'erent social and historical circumstances. But there is no getting round the fact that the transition from feudalism is, on a world scale, a case of highly uneven development. The triumph of capitalism occurred fully in one and only one part of the world, and this region in turn transformed the rest. Consequently we have to explain primarily the special reasons whicir caused this to happen in the Mediterranean-European region and not elsewhere. (3) This does not mean that the problem is to be solved in purely European terms. On the con-trary, it is evident that at various crucial stages the relations between Europe and the rest of the world were decisive. Broadly speaking, Europe was for most of its history a region of barbarism on the extreme western margin of the zone of civilisa-tion, which extended from China in the East through southern Asia to the Near and Middle East. (Japan occupies a similar marginal position at the east of this area, though much closer to the centres of civilisation). At the very outset of European history (as Gordon Childe showed) the economic interrelations with the Near East were important. This is also true at the outset of European feudal history, when the new barbarian (though potentially much more progressive) economy established itself on the ruins of the ancient Greco-Roman empires, and its most advanced centres lay along the final stages of the pipe-line of East-West trade through the Medi-

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MARXISM TODAY, AUGUST 1962 255

terranean (Italy, the Rhine valley). It is even more obvious at the outset of European capitalism, when the conquest or colonial exploitation of America, Asia, Africaand parts of Eastern Europemade possible the primary accumulation of capital in the area in whicji it finally broke through to victory. (4) This area comprises parts (but not by any means all) of mediterranean, central and western Europe. Thanks to archaeological and historical work, mainly since 1939, we are now in a position to establish the main stages of its economic development. They are:

(A) a period of relapse, following the break-up of the west-Roman empire followed by the gradual evolution of a feudal economy and perhaps a recession in the lOth century A.D. ("The dark ages").

(B) A period of extremely widespread and rapid economic development from about 1000 A.D. to the early 14th century (the "high middle ages") which form the peak of feudalism. This period saw a marked growth of population, agricultural and manufacturing production and trade, the virtual revival of cities, a great outburst of culture, and a striking expansion of the western feudal economy in the form of "crusades" against the .Moslems, emigration, colonisation and the setting up of trading-posts abroad.

(C) A major "feudal crisis" in the 14lh and 15th centuries, marked by a collapse of large-scale feudal agriculture, of manufactures and inter-national trade, by population decline, attempted social revolution and ideological crisis.

(D) A renewal period of expansion from the mid-15th to the mid-17th century marked for the first time by signs of a major break in the basis and superstructure of feudal society (the Reforma-tion, the elements of bourgeois revolution in the Netherlands) and the first clear break-out of the European traders and conquerors into America and the Indian Ocean. This is the period which Marx regarded as marking the beginning of the capitalist era (Capital, I, Dona Torr edn., p.739).

(E) Another period of crisis, adjustment or set-back, the "seventeenth century crisis" coincides with the first clear break-through of bourgeois society, the English Revolution. It is followed by a renewed and increasingly general period of economic expansion which culminates in

(F) The definite triumph of capitalist society in the virtually simultaneous Industrial Revolution in Britain, the American Revolution and the French Revolution, all occurring in the last quarter of the 18th century.

The economic development of eastern Europe is somewhat different. Perhaps roughly comparable

in periods (A) and (B), a break occurs with the conquest of large areas by Asian peoples (Mon-gols, Turks), and during period (D) and (E) parts of it are subordinated as semi-colonies to the developing western capitalist area, and undergo a process of re-feudalisation. (5) The transition from feudalism to capitalism is therefore a long and by no means uniform pro-cess. It covers at least five of our six phases. The discussion of this transition has turned largely on the character of the centuries between the first clear signs of breakdown of feudalism (period (C), the "feudal crisis"^ in the i4th century) and the definitive triumph of capitalism at the end of the 18th century. Each of these phases contains strong elements of capitalist developmente.g.. in period (B) the striking rise of the Italian and Flemish textile manufactures, which collapsed during the feudal crisis. On the other hand nobody has seriously maintained that capitalism prevailed before the 16th century or that feudalism prevailed after the late 18th. However, nobody can doubt that for all or most of the last 1000 years before 1800 ec(inomic evolution consistently took place in the same direction. Not everywhere, and not at the same time. There were areas which relapsed, after leading the field (e.g., in Italy). There were areas which altered the direction of their evolution for a lime. Again, not uniformly. Each major crisis saw formerly "leading" countries drop back, overtaken by formerly backward but potentially more progressive ones, like England. But there can be no serious doubt that each phase in its way advanced the victory of capitalism, even those which superficially appear as periods of economic recession. (6) If this is so, it is certainly probable that there exists a fundamental contradiction in this par-ticular form of feudal society which drives it ever forward towards the victory of capitalism. The nature of this contradiction has not yet been .satis-factorily clarified. On the other hand it is also clear that the forces which resist such a develop-ment, though weaker, are far from negligible. For the transition from feudalism to capitalism is not a simple process by which the capitalist ele-ments within feudalism are strengthened until they are strong enough to burst out of the feudal shell. What we see time and again (as in the 14th and

5 This crisis first attracted serious attention in the I930's. Marxist discussions of it occur in M. Dobb, Studies in die Development of Capitalism (1946), R. H. Hilton in Annales E.S.C. 1951, 23-50 (in French), F. Graus, 'J'he first crisis of feudalism (in German and Czech. 1953, 1955), M. Malowist (in Polish) 1953, 19.54 and E. A. Ko.sminsky. Feudal rent in England U'ast and Present, 7, 1955).

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256 MARXISM TODAY, AUGUST 1 9 6 2

probably the 17th centuries) is that a crisis of feudalism also involves the most advanced sections of bourgeois development within it, and therefore produces an apparent setbaclc. Progress no doubt goes on or resumes elsewhere, in hitherto more backward areas, such as England. But the interest-ing thing about the 14th century crisis (for instance) is not only the collapse of large-scale feudal demesne agriculture, but also that of the Italian and Flemish textile industries, with their capitalist employers and proletarian wage-workers and an organisation which has almost got to the verge of industrialisation. England advances; but the much greater Italy and Flanders never recover and temporarily total industrial production there-fore diminishes. Naturally such a long period in which the forces of capitalism are rising, but time and again fail to burst out of the feudal integu-ment, or are even involved in the feudal crisis, is difficult to describe in static terms. Much of the unsatisfactory nature of Marxist discussion about the period between the first general crisis of feudalism and the much later unquestioned vic-tory of capitalism, reflects this difficulty. (7) How far does this picture of a progressive replacement of feudalism by capitalism apply to regions outside the "heartland" of capitalist development? Only to a very small extent. There are admittedly certain signs of comparable development under the impetus of the develop-ment of the world market after the 16th century, perhaps in the encouragement of textile manu-factutes in India. But these are more than offset by the opposite tendency, namely that which

turned the other areas that came into contact with and under the influence of the European powers into dependent economies and colonies of the west. In fact, large parts of the Americas were turned into slave economies to serve the needs of European capitalism, and large parts of Africa were pushed back economically through the slave-trade; large areas of eastern Europe were turned into neo-feudal economies for similar reasons. And even the temporary and slight stimulus to the development of commercial farming and manu-factures which the rise of European capitalism may have provided here and there, was stopped short by the deliberate de-industrialisation of the colonies and semi-colonies as soon as they looked like competing with home production or even (as in India) attempted to supply their own market instead of relying on imports from Britain. The net effect of the rise of European capitalism was therefore to intensify uneven development, and to divide the world ever more sharply into two sectors: the "developed" and the "under-developed" countries, in other words the exploit-ing and the exploited. The triumph of capitalism at the end of the 18th century put the .seal on this development. Capitalism, while no doubt provid-ing the historic conditions for economic trans-formation everywhere, in fact made it more diffi-cult than before for the countries which did not belong to the original nucleus of capitalist develop-ment or its immediate neighbours. The Soviet Revolution of 1917 alone provided the means and the model for genuine world-wide economic growth and balanced development of all peoples.

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