Marx and Engels themselves consistently emphasised that historical materialism is a scientific approach to generalisation from the facts. "Our conception of history is, above all, a guide to study, not a lever for construction after the manner of the hegelians," wrote Engels in a letter in 1890.
Marx and Engels themselves consistently emphasised that historical materialism is a scientific approach to generalisation from the facts. "Our conception of history is, above all, a guide to study, not a lever for construction after the manner of the hegelians," wrote Engels in a letter in 1890.
Marx and Engels themselves consistently emphasised that historical materialism is a scientific approach to generalisation from the facts. "Our conception of history is, above all, a guide to study, not a lever for construction after the manner of the hegelians," wrote Engels in a letter in 1890.
Joan Simon (Secretary, History Group of the Communist Party) W HY is the establishment of stages in social development important? Perhaps this general question should be put before surveying the recent discussion in Marxism Today and summarising the day's debate on the subject organised by the editorial board and the History Group of the Communist Party, at Marx House on March 18th last. What is at issue here is both the nature and suc- cession of different forms of society, including ways in which the transition from one to another takes placein other words, the movement and direction of human history. This is, of course, a very large subject indeed, and the historical materialist approach can hardly be summarised in a sentence. But Lenin, as usual, managed briefly to express the essence of the matter. Pre-Marxist historiography, "at best provided an accumulation of raw facts, collected at random, and a depiction of certain sides of the historical process. By examining the ensemble of all the opposing tendencies, by reducing them to precisely definable conditions of life and production of the various classes of society, by discarding sub- jectivism and arbitrariness in the choice of various 'leading' ideas or in their interpretation, and by disclosing that all ideas and all the various tenden- cies, without exception, have their roots in the condition of the material forces of production, Marxism points the way to an all-embracing and comprehensive study of the process of the rise, development, and decline of social-economic formations" (The Teachings of Karl Marx, Little Lenin Library, p. 24). Marx and Engels themselves consistently empha- sised that historical materialism is a scientific ap- proach to generalisation from the facts. They were, therefore, well aware of the immense amount of historical research needed before the picture of successive social formations could be filled out. "Our conception of history is, above all, a guide to study, not a lever for construction after the manner of the Hegelians," wrote Engels in a letter in 1890. "All history must be studied afresh, the conditions of existence of the different formations of society must be individually examined before the attempt is made to deduce from them the political, civil- legal, aesthetic, philosophic, religious etc. notions corresponding to them. Only a little has been done here up to now because only a few people have got down to it seriously" {Selected Correspondence, p. 473). During the present century, particularly in recent decades, there has been a wide development of historical research, ranging from anthropological and archaeological studies to the present day. In particular, much material has been brought to light by historians working under new conditions in the U.S.S.R., China, eastern Europe, India, Africa, among them a greatly increased number of Marxist historians. The close examination of diflferent forms of society, the study of branches of history afresh, has raised new questions about the process of rise, development and decline of societies in history; in particular, about the successive stages in this process in the history of class society, after the disintegration of primitive communalism. This succession has usually been defined in terms of a sentence taken from Marx's preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) in which he ends an exposition of the historical materialist approach with the words: "In broad outline we can designate the Asiatic, the ancient, the feudal and the modern bourgeois methods (i.e. modes) of production as so many epochs in the progress of the economic formation of society. The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production" (Kerr ed. p. 13). The category "Asiatic" suggests a regional form, though one of major importance, so it is by no means clear that Marx is here designating successive stages to be found universally. Nevertheless, this is the impression of the Marxist viewpoint given in the Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism (1961) sum- marised in the phrase: "Mankind as a whole has passed through four formations^primitive-com- munal, slave, feudal and capitaMst" (p. 154). Marx' s "Asiatic mode" is, however, omitted here. (This, it may be noted, was also the case in the Short History of the C.P.S.U. (1939) where, in the section on historical materialism, the examples cited are that from disintegrating primitive communalism slavery (the "ancient mode") emerged, that feudalism is replaced by capitalism (p. 110).) The "Asiatic Mode" Robin Jardine drew attention to this divergence in the contribution that opened the discussion in these pages (July 1961), when he also raised the question as to whether the "ancient mode" has been PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 184 MARXISM TODAY, JUNE 1962 a universal stage in the history of socio-economic development; whether, for instance, there was an epoch of slavery in India and China. Discussion has tended to centre around these questions. One contributor remained unconvinced that there was any point at issue, dismissing all queries as fanciful speculations, but his firm reassertion of the "Marxist view" overcame the divergence between Marxist sources only by incorrectly equating Marx's "Asiatic mode" with the stage of barbarism preceding class society (Sid Douglas, December 1961). On the other hand. Professor PuUeybank, professor of Chinese at Cambridge, noting that Chinese and Japanese Marxist historians have dropped the "Asiatic mode", suggested that whether or not there have been uni- versal stages is a "pseudo-problem"; implying that the very large questions involved in drawing com- parisons and connections between the development of different civilisations cannot usefully be approached in this way. All this raises important points. It would probably be true to say that, so far as the majority of Marxist historians are concerned, the "Asiatic mode" has long since tacitly dropped out of use.^ More recently the "ancient mode" or slavery has come openly into question. At the International Congress of Historical Sciences held at Stockholm in 1960, Academician Zhukov made clear that Marxist historians in the Soviet Union no longer regard slavery as a universal stage; for in- stance, it has not been found to have been the pre- dominant mode of production in Russia at any time, nor among the Germanic peoples. Was the first civilisation to emerge in India, in the Indus river valley (2500-1500 B.C.) a slave society? Dev Raj Chanana, in Slavery in Ancient India (1960), only advances "with a certain amount of reserve" the hypothesis that "slave labour could have existed both in the country and towns of the Indus civilisa- tion". Evidence from literary sources bears witness to various forms of slavery in India at later periods, but not, he suggests, to an epoch of slavery comparable with that of the classical period in Greece or Rome. In general, historians have found forms of chattel slavery nearly everywhere in pre-capitalist societies, but the existence of slaves by no means implies that slavery was the predominant mode of production. There was, of course, a marked degree of slavery in America in the modern age, but this does not deter- mine classification as a slave society since the pre- dominant productive relations were developing capitalist relations. A similar position probably existed in many parts of the world in antiquity, with slaves in domestic work, agriculture, perhaps even crafts, within the framework of other predominating productive relations. There is no evidence that the peoples of Africa passed through an epoch of slavery. On the other hand, Chinese Marxist histori- ans agreed that "China has gone through an epoch of slavery and that the remains of slavery lasted for a long time after the collapse of slave society"; though it would seem that there is wide disagree- ment on the dating of this epoch, some placing it before the eleventh century B.C., others putting its lower limit in the period 770-206 B.C., and a third view holding that it lasted up to and during the Wei period, A.D. 220-265.^ What does all this add up to ? The "Asiatic mode" has dropped out, and only in certain areas has slavery been shown to be important enough to form the basis of the economy. There remains, then, the basic succession of social-economic formations: primitive communalismfeudalismcapitalism. In practice this means that "feudalism", having 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. In addition, where investigations of primitive societies have indicated the existence of a social division of labour the feudal stage has been pushed back into what had previously been regarded as the "primitive communal" stage. Obviously a socio-economic stage which covers both Ruanda-Urundi today and France in 1788, both China in 1900 and Norman England, is in danger of losing any kind of specific character likely to assist analysis; rather, analysis can only remain extremely general unless some sub-divisions are arrived at. This is the problem that has, as it were, come into being, no one having deliberately set out to extend "feudalism". It is a problem which has not hitherto been systematically tackled by Marxists but is now a subject for discussion among historians in many different countries. This was the main question discussed at the meeting held on March 18th. Marx's Approach Preliminary material prepared by members of the History Group, besides making some of the points already made, also outlined in more detail Marx' s own approach, which was anything but schematic ^ An exception is Namboodiripad, The National Question in Kerala (1952), where an evolution of feudalism from the "Asiatic mode" is suggested. ^ These points are taken from an article summarising recent discussions published in Collection for Discussion of the Periodisation of Ancient Chinese History (1957, in Chinese), and translated into German in the G.D.R. journal, Zeitschrift filr Geschichtswissenschaft (1962). Professor PuUeybank, noting the complexities involved in assessing slavery in China, adds that Japanese Marxist historians have concluded that there was an epoch of slavery in Japan "during the millennium following the founding of the Ch'in empire in 221 B.C." and discerned the transition to feudalism during the Sung period from A.D. 960. PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED MARXISM TODAY, JUNE 1962 185 and dogmatic. The phrase quoted from the preface of the Critique should, for instance, be put in context if it is to be properly understood. In the introduction to this work (unpublished during his lifetime) Marx does this, in the course of arguing against the bourgeois political economists who assume that capitalist productive relations are eternal. "Whenever . . . we speak of production, we always have in mind production at a certain stage of social development. Hence, it might seem that in order to speak of production at all, we must either trace the historical process of development through its various phases, or declare at the outset that we are dealing with a certain historical period, as e.g. with modern capitalistic production." Nevertheless, Marx continues, certain elements in production are common to all epochs, in that no production is conceivable without them; there is also, of course, a general uniformity in conditions of production in so far as "the subject, mankind, and the object, nature, remain the same". All stages of production, therefore, "have certain landmarks in common, common purposes". What marks the specific characteristics of a particular stage "are the points of departure from the general and common" (pp. 268-269). After developing these points, Marx concludes: "Bourgeois society is but a form resulting from the development of antagonistic elements, some relations belonging to earlier forms of society are frequently to be found in it but in a crippled state or as a travesty of their former self, as e.g. communal property. . . . The last form always considers its predecessors as stages leading up to itself and per- ceives them always one-sidedly, since it is very seldom and only under certain conditions th.it it is capable of self-criticism. . . . Bourgeois political economy first came to understand the feudal, the ancient and the oriental societies when self-criticism of bourgeois society had commenced" (p. 301). In the published preface Marx turns this analysis round of give the same stages preceding the developed form of capitalism he is analysing due weight in their own right. But that he himself did not regard this as a copmlete picture is made clear by a comment in the text of the Critique: "A closer study of the Asiatic, especially of Indian forms of communal ownership, would show how from the different forms of primitive communism different forms of dissolution . . . developed" (p. 29 n). This comment is probably related to other notes Marx made when preparing this work (which were published in German in 1939 but have not yet been translated). Here he tentatively distinguishes varieties of the basic form of economy emerging from different forms of communal or tribal organisatione.g., in addition to the Asiatic (or oriental), the ancient (or slave), the Germanic, and possibly the Slavonic each tending to produce a somewhat different form of the social division of labour: e.g., the separation of town and country in the "ancient mode", the failure to separate agriculture and crafts in the Indian village community leading to a closed circuit and inability to draw off the surplus except for marginal purposes. It was this last point, the specific nature of what he called the "village system" within Asiatic empires that underlay Marx's differen- tiation of the "Asiatic mode". Present trends in Marxist historiography, there- fore, do not run counter to Marx but rather pursue lines upon which he himself had begun to embark. If there have been any un-Marxist trends these lie in a too rigid and dogmatic use of a single sentence as comprising the whole of the Marxist approach. Earlier Forms In this connection it was underlined in discussion that one of the main dangers, when attempting to assess earlier forms of social development, is to look at them through the eyes of the present, in terms of conditions proper to the class struggle in capitalist society and the nature of the transition to socialism. As Marx and Engels always stressed, it is only in the modern capitalist era that the class struggle is nar- rowed down to the point where two great classes confront each other; capitalist productive relations must be overthrown before socialist relations can be established. Before this epoch, however, there are often a variety of classes and class antagonisms on the basis of a variety of forms of ownership and exploitation, and new productive relations can grow within the old framework; i.e., capitalist relations of production develop within feudal society, which implies in turn a gradual and perhaps very lengthy disintegration of feudalism. It is, then, obviously incorrect to see the transition from one earlier stage of social development to another in terms of a straightforward clash in which the old ruling class is ousted by a new ruling class, already fully fledged, which forthwith assumes undisputed control of the state. There are no historical grounds for conceiving of slave-owners ousted in straight conflict with feudal lords, nor for that matter feudal lords deposed single-handed by the urban bourgeoisie. The same considerations extend to the realm of ideology. To regard new ideas which come to the forefront and play an important role as essentially the ideology of the rising exploiting class is to fly in the face of the historical record. In sixteenth-century Europe, for instance, Protestant ideas were primarily the property of the old exploited class, the peasantry and poorer artisans, and came to the forefront as an expression of the tension of the times and general sharpening of various aspects PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 186 MARXISM TODAY, JUNE 1962 of class Struggle. Only as the new exploiting class takes form and takes over does this ideology become transformed into a new ruling ideology. (There is a parallel in the early history of Christianity in the ancient world.) The bourgeois revolution in England may serve as an example. If the work of Maurice Dobb and Christopher Hill has shown anything it is the com- plexity of the developments leading up to this, in particular, changing productive relations and class- differentiation, but also the role of the state and the development and interplay of religious ideas. There had been trade and towns for centuries (as of course already in the ancient world) but though merchant wealth and influence grew, it did not necessarily find an outlet in industry; the merchant class was, to a considerable extent, parasitic on the ruling order and feudal society remained rooted in the land. It was, in fact, changing relations of production in agriculture, spreading through the countryside, that were deci- sive, that determined the possibility of a break- through to which the towns only contributed; while so far as industry was concerned it was the upthrust of the petty commodity producer that counted most in the development of capitalist relationswhat Marx called the "really revolutionary way". Feudal powers had, to a considerable extent, become central- ised in the state, the monarchy, which had taken over many of the functions of the old feudal ruling class; hence the revolution was directed against the mon- archy and the chief of these powers curbed or removed, clearing the way for the development of capitalist productive relations. But there remained a long formative period before the industrial bour- geoisie came to maturity and to power. Productive Relations All this helps to get earlier stages of class society into perspective. Then productive relations in agri- culture were also decisive, towns and trade usually marginal ("trading nations, properly so called, exist in the ancient world only in its interstices". Capital, I, 51), and the role of centralised states in maintain- ing old forms of social organisation often important. A variety of forms of ownership and exploitation often coexisted. How, in these circumstances, can the stage of socio-economic development be defined? The key, as Robert Browning stressed (Marxism Today, October 1961) is not the proportion of the population engaged in particular branches of pro- duction, but rather "the productive relations in those branches of production where high surplus values are produced". This marks the predominant form of production which largely determines the whole complex of social institutions; it is the basis on which there arises a whole superstructure of political, legal and cultural forms. The way in which the surplus is appropriated has the closest bearing on the nature and rate of social development. Technological advance is, of course, of primary importance. But the existence of certain tools does not necessarily bear witness to a particular level of social organisation, as Gordon Childe was always careful to point out. The discovery and use of iron made possible a great extension of the area under cultivationin Africa and Asia for instanceby comparison with the Bronze Age when cultivation was confined to narrow strips and developed most highly in fertile river valleys. But new methods of production and social organisation did not develop universally on similar lines. Iron tools could, how- ever, in favourable circumstances make for a high development of agricultural production and the increase of the surplus. These were the factors of importance to economic and social development, i.e., not the mere existence and use of the tools but the ways in which they could be and were put to use in the productive process. Historical Materialism To begin at the beginning, the historical materialist approach distinguishes production, which is the basic activity of human beings, as the foundation of all human societies. At a primitive stage of social and technological development men engage in production in common, having equal access to the means of production. This is the stage of primitive communal- ism which Engels, very much on the lines adopted by L. H. Morgan, divided into a lower stage of "savagery" (in turn sub-divided into a lower, middle and higher) and a more advanced stage of "bar- barism" (with a similar triple sub-division). Engels defines the primitive stages of humanity as those when men appropriated finished natural products and acquired knowledge of cattle raising, agriculture and new methods of increasing the productivity of nature by human agency (Origin of the Family (1884), ch. 1). Class society, the social division of labour, arises when a section of society gains control over the basic means of production and so over those engaged in production and the product. Men now stand in different relations to the means of production and so in different relations to each other, relations of dominance and dependency. These find expression in the fact that the surplus available from production is appropriated, in kind or in money, by the exploit- ing class, either directly or through a state apparatus. There are, as Marx suggested, a variety of ways in which the process of disintegration of primitive communalism may take place, just as there are vary- ing forms of primitive society. The point emphasised in discussion was how relatively easy it is for old bonds to be loosened once production reaches a PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED MARXISM TODAY, JUNE 1962 187 certain level and a surplus becomes available, and for a primitive form of class society to emerge. For instance, a priesthood can gain special rights, elders can gain domination over juniors, clan chieftains can turn landlord. With the social division of labour, customthe oldest and strongest bond of primitive societiesgives place to differing rights and obliga- tions enforced by new forms of government. It is not profitable to push back the frontiers of feudalism too far, wherever any form of social division of labour is found, for this is to deprive the term of all meaning. But as soon as the social division of labour comprises exploitation of a dependent class of producers this marks the first stage of class society. What form does this exploitation take? At this stage society is still predominantly agrarian, economic life is relatively regionalised and localised (though this does not exclude some trade and towns or even some form of money), technology is relatively back- ward. The basic form of exploitation Is that of tillers of the soil by those who have succeeded in getting the community's rights over the land it tills vested in themselves, or are in a position to draw off the surplus, though this is not to say that there are not free commoners or peasant proprietors as well. These are the characteristics of feudalism but as yet in a relatively embryonic form so that the earliest stage of class society may, perhaps, best be called "proto-feudal". Development of Class Society From this first stage of class society there are various directions of development, depending on internal conditions, external factors, natural re- sources. These may favour, for instance, a highly centralised appropriation of the surplus by a priestly order, appropriation by rising cities or other ruling groups, implying centralised forms of organisation and the early rise of forms of state power. Marx, for instance, emphasised the importance of certain physical resources, noting that "it is the necessity of bringing a natural force under the control of society, of economising, of appropriating or subduing it on a large scale by the work of man' s hand, that first plays the decisive part in the history of industry". As examples of resulting social relations he cited Egypt and India, noting that the need to predict "the rise and fall of the Nile created Egyptian astronomy and with it the domination of the priests, as directors of agriculture", while "one of the material bases of the power of the state over the small disconnected producing organisms in India was the regulation of the water supply" {Capital, I, pp. 521-523). The creation of a strong centralised state super- imposed on a society with a low general level of economic development, and perhaps persisting forms of clan organisation, is likely to have a crystallising and arresting effect. For instance, the central govern- ment in China controlled public works but other- wise, a few larger towns excepted, the whole empire "was resolved into villages"; this made for the retention of old forms of production unchanged, a tendency reinforced by the fact that state taxes were payable in kind {Selected Corr. p. 70). Here, then, Marx is ascribing the stability of despotic forms of rule predominantly to a form of the division of labour, dependent in part on such physical features as large tracts of fertile land, which remained rela- tively constant, the methods of extracting the surplus being such as to consolidate old rather than develop new productive relations. Once, of course, there is a strong state power the accumulation of merchant wealth and its flow into industry or agriculture can be checked, ways being found of siphoning back the surplus and maintaining the traditional balance. The Problem of Arrested Development This is the key problem that engaged Marx and must concern all Marxist historianswhy develop- ment in the Orient, for so long so far in advance of the rest of the world, was arrested; why the full chain of development: earlier societiesfeudalism capitalism, was only completed in Europe. Here it was noted that Gordon Childe, broaching the question from the angle of pre-history, suggested the following factors: (a) natural unevenness of histori- cal development, i.e., that only in certain regions are there the conditions for an initial development of civilisation; {b) the interaction between cultures drawn together by trade, communications, etc.; (c) the "leapfrogging" whereby formerly backward societies which escape the crisis and breakdown of older, more advanced, systems take over from them at a potentially higher level. An example Childe developed is that of Europe, profiting from the early development of a metallur- gical industry in nearby Egypt and Mesopotamia "where alone the economic and social preconditions for the initial foundation of a metallurgical industry existed". That they could make use of the products of this, and develop the mining of ore for a guaranteed market, exempted Europeans "from paying the heavy price of starting such an industry from scratch" in terms of the rigid class distinctions and despotic rule of Egypt of the Pharaohs, which eventually fettered development and ended in break- down ("The Bronze Age", Past and Present, No. 12, 19571. The fact that any more elaborate society (before the industrial capitalist), when it collapses, tends to lapse into a feudal form also suggests that this is the most primitive form of class society^temples decay, trade and towns deteriorate, leaving a set-up of a feudal type. On the other hand, where slavery PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED If MARXISM TODAY, JUNE 1962 develops as the basic form of productive relations in the classical world it is on the foundation of a relatively high level of development; for instance, of trade and of crafts, with the existence of a monetary system and a system of usury. The process in Europe was aided by a variety of special conditions; for instance, there were in close proximity to Greece other societies at a much lower level from which slaves could be obtained. Hence the use-value of their labour power was increased by the mere fact of transporting them to an area of more advanced technology, and since they were brought across the sea to a land encircled by mountains escape was not easy. This is one of the main contributory factors in ensuring that a high surplus value can be obtained (otherwise slaves must be chained, which is a hindrance, or well treated which is expensive); while the other is that the general technical level of production should be relatively high. Here is the decisive reason for rejecting the view that slavery is the first stage of class society to develop. On the contrary, slavery develops within the framework of proto-feudal relations, and only in particular condi- tions becomes the predominant mode of production. Vv'hen it collapses, society lapses into a feudal form if at a potentially higher level of development. Turning to Africa, it was noted that there are traceable forms of vassalage developing directly out of clan or tribal society, side by side with continuing primitive forms of organisation and government. As elsewhere in the ancient world, commodity produc- tion was restricted, there were neither a reservoir of detribalised labour nor the techniques of using it. Early feudal type states were very stable, lasting from 800 to 900 years, with an economy sufficiently developed to support a quite complex social system including an embryonic civil service and army. There was, however, a notable absence of free urban communities. Moreover, forms of landholding and relations of dominance and dependency differed so greatly from those in feudal Europe that it does not seem useful to apply the same term to them. To take another point, it was suggested that it is possible to particularise developments during the breakdown of primitive communalism after the agrarian revolution. First, there is the consolidation of forms of clan society based on kinship which cover some inequalities but can remain very stable over long periods, especially in out of the way conditions, e.g., Scotland. Second, the breakdown of clan society in the aspect that has been called the Heroic Age which often acts as a bridge to the establishment of feudal relations at a relatively high level. This is found at times of migration and new settlement, an essential condition being that tribal peoples are in a position to plunder and learn from older and richer societies; as, for instance, in the Greek Homeric period and the period when the Germanic tribes invested Rome and swept across Western Europe^while it is possible that such a stage can be discerned in Africa, when the Polynesians broke out over the Pacific and so on. The Road to Feudalism This was the direct road to feudalism as it was traversed in parts of Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. There was a whole variety of factors contributing to continued advance in Europe, towards a developed form of feudalism, which is often typifiedthough with much too much emphasis on purely legal formsby Norman England. Precisely because this is the connotation of feudalism it is difficult to apply the term without much qualification to the Chinese Empire or to Africa. This is now the main problem, with which presumably Marx was preoccupied when he postu- lated several variations in the basic form of economy that emerges from disintegrating communal societies of different types. On these fronts a plea was made for rehabilitation of Marx's "Asiatic mode"or even several modesto enable a separation out of widely differing regional variations. At the same time it is essential to keep clear the basic common factors in such formations even though they may exhibit many secondary variations; or, to put it another way, the transition from communal society to the first stage of class society is fundamentally the same transition though it may take place in x number of ways. This is why it may be useful to postulate the development of a single basic stage of class society, calling this perhaps "proto-feudal". From this regional variations may develop exhibiting essen- tially the same basic form of exploitation but in which the creation and drawing off of the surplus diiTers, implying differing superstructures and rates of development. * * * These were some of the viewspoints advanced which should be considered as such; there was no question of formulating a series of conclusions on which all those present agreed. The aim was rather to define a general approach to the problem, sup- ported by evidence from various fields, which could serve as a contribution to the discussion here and the basis for further more specialised discussions in the future. Some of the points will be more fully developed in later articles, since this is only a digest from the record of a detailed exchange of views. It is also hoped that material from discussions in other countries will become available, for the important and interesting questions at issue can only be satis- factorily hammered out as a result of international study and discussion. PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 189 The Week of Marxist Thought in Fr ance Phyl Gr iffi th-Hentges D URING the past few months political life in France has been galvanised into action unprecedented for many years. The central problems wereand indeed remainthe situa- tion in Algeria, the danger of fascism created by the O.A.S., and the fight to restore democracy. The atmosphere became particularly tense in February (a million Parisians attended the funeral of the eight anti-fascists brutally killed at a big anti-O.A.S. demonstration) and tension slackened only when the cease-fire was signed between de Gaulle and the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic. m the middle cf il.is period the Week of Marxist Thought was organised in Paris (Decem- ber 7th-14th) around the j;eiicral theme: "Humanism and Dialectics". This crystallised an upsurge of intellectual reflection provmg the need for a discussion of the philosophical problems of the day associated with the increasing political activity of the working class and the people as a whole. It showed the attraction that Marxism holds not only for the working class, but for large numbers of intellectuals and professional people doctors, schoolteachers, technicianswho, un- decided as to their future in present-day France, seek a new way forward. The result was that 6,000 students and intellec- tuals gathered on the first day to hear Roger Garaudy and Jean Pierre Vigier debate with Jean Paul Sartre and Jean Hyppolite. Never had the halls of the Mutualite, traditional meeting house in the Latin Quarter, seen such crowds. There were students on the stairs, in the corridors, in annexeswherever they could hear the over-flow loudspeakers, and it was a long time before the queues in the street gave up the idea of getting in. These young people, reputed by some to be twist- crazy, turbulent hoodlums, listened to two hours of debate on the dialectics of nature in total silence. In all, some 20,000 people attended the various conferences during this Week, organised by the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Marxistes (C.E.R.M.) together with the Paris District Com- mittee of the French Communist Party and the Union of Communist Students. There were five big meetings which took the form of a debate between Marxists and non- Marxists : Are dialectics merely a law governing history or also a natural law? The historian and his time; Humanism and Cinema; Humanism and the human being; Conduct of revolt and militant action. At the final meeting at the Mutualite, Roger Garaudy, director of the C.E.R.M. and member of the political bureau of the Communist Party, summed up the results of the Week, and Waldeck Rochet, deputy general secretary of the Party con- cluded on the theme: The Communist Party and Culture. At the same time., the big debates were accom- panied by forty-odd study circles for students at which Marxist university professors led the dis- cussion on various subjects connected with the university programmes. Here the aim was neither a debate nor a purely university course, but rather to give the students a Marxist orientation on a given subject and to discuss questions of method. The wide range of these study circles can be judged by taking a few of the subjects at random: The ethics of Kant and Marx; Can a Marxist understand Pascal? The role of the state budget; Phenomenology and praxis; The role of nucleic acids in heredity; Pavlov's theory applied to obstetrics; Mayakovsky; The class struggle in ancient Greece and Rome; The crisis of colonialism and problems of under- developed countries. The organisers decided to draw in to the work of the Week not only intellectuals but a much wider general public, and for this they sought the help of rUniversite Nouvelle, already well known for its courses on Marxism. Three conferences were held at which the teachers of I'Universite Nouvelle answered questions arising from the big debates, explaining the basic principles of Marxism in history, science and philosophy. PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED