Problems Regarding the Oriental Road of Revolution

Abstract

This article examines Marx′s theoretical exploration of the oriental road of revolution. After three development stages of his theory of continuing revolution. Marx began to study the problems of the oriental revolution. His exploration makes clear that the reasons for collapse of clans of various nationalities were different. There appeared a multi‐thread development of history in the background of extending genealogy by clan societies of different regions and nationalities, which embodied the different formations of social structure and the foundations of different historical development. Marx stood for distinguishing oriental village communes from the feudal society in Western Europe, thus opening the study of the theories of the historical press of oriental society. Marx opposed the theory of historical philosophy that thoroughly turns the historical summary of the origin of capitalism in Western Europe into a general development road. Under the influence of the Narodnits, Marx concentrated more attention on the transformation of a village commune economic formation. He demonstrated that the duality of the village commune did not necessarily lead to a transition from public ownership to private ownership; it could absorb all the positive results the capitalist system had obtained without passing the Caudine Forks of the capitalist system. The author points to the world history of the continuing revolution of socialism, which is determined by the world history of capitalism. In China, this problem was solved with the theories of a continuing new democratic revolution and revolutionary development phase. The grounds of productive force for carrying out the socialist revolution should be distinguished from the criteria of productive forces for the realisation of socialism. In a certain sense, the qualitative stipulation on the criteria of socialist productive forces is “anthropological” rather than “economic”.

Citation

Shuming, P. (1991), "Problems Regarding the Oriental Road of Revolution", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 18 No. 8/9/10, pp. 124-131. https://doi.org/10.1108/03068299110139684