1. The document discusses Marxist perspectives on colonialism through analyzing four readings on the topic. It outlines key Marxist thinkers' views on colonialism and how it has been studied. 2. Mainly, it discusses Marx and Lenin's views that colonialism developed societies in an underdeveloped way by integrating them into the capitalist world system without allowing true capitalist development. 3. It also analyzes different trends in Marxist thought on colonialism, including orthodox, Second International, and Third World approaches that had nationalist and local influences.

1. PERSPECTIVES ON
COLONIALISM :
MARXIST

2. COLONIALISM:
BASIC ASPECTS (ESSAYS ON COLONIALISM)
READING- 1
- BIPAN CHANDRA

3. TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION:
1. INTRODUCTION TO COLONIALISM: MEANING AND
DEFINITION
2. IMPORTANT WORKS ON COLONIALISM IN THE INTER-WAR
PERIOD
3. DIFFERENT VIEWS ON COLONIAL SOCIETIES BASED ON
4. DIFFERENCES MANIFESTED IN BIPAN CHANDRA’S
COMPARISON OF COLONIAL AND CAPITALIST SOCIETIES.

4. PART 1: STUDY OF COLONIALISM
Colonialism
Meaning and definition:
● Colonialism is a holistic system of societal domination. Its modern category became
widely popularized by the resolutions of Communist International and their propaganda
and agitations. They widely reflected a Marxist analysis of the concept and reality of
Colonialism.
● Marx and Engels were the first to see the character and impact of colonialism on the
colonized society while studying Ireland under British domination.
● First detailed and coherent critique of colonialism: early Indian nationalists during the
period of 1870-1905.

5. IMPORTANT WORKS ON COLONIALISM IN THE
INTER-WAR PERIOD:
I. Comintern and its Journals
II. Owen Latimore, Keith Michell, Joseph Barnes – in journals Far eastern Quarterly, Amerasia, and associated
with the Inst. Of Pacific Affairs in New York
III. Leland Jenks at Yale promoted the study of American Imperialism in Latin America
IV
. Leonard Wolfe- important insights into the study of African colonialism
V
. J.S. Furnivall provided- a major non-Marxist approach
VI. Kumar Ghoshal
VII. K.T. Shah, C.N. Vakil, Bal Krishna, Wadia, and Merchant (National economists in India) – provided empirical
and theoretical support to the early nationalist approach
VIII. R. Palme Dutt (in India Today) and A.R. Desai (in Social Background of Indian Nationalism) provided- Most
significant and structured contribution.

6. DEVELOPMENTS
IN THE STUDY OF
COLONIALISM
ANDRE GUNDER FRANK
● A surprising omission: the complete ignorance, neglect, and suppression of the
subject of colonialism in the universities of France and Britain and a defense
of the same (colonial record).
● Academics outside the socialist countries were largely quiet on the subject
during the first two decades after 1945.
● Lone exceptions: B.N. Ganguly and G. Balandier (plus, Md Hussain’s work on
Egypt).
● Early dependency theorists: Raul Prebisch provided tangential elaborations
of different aspects of colonialism.
● In the USA, McCarthy’s witch-hunting campaign prevented the development
of the American study of colonialism and he used “colonialism” as a litmus
test to evict communist intellectuals in the universities and research
institutes.
● The results were - driving the likes of Owen Lattimore, Daniel Thorner, and
Lawrence Rosinger out of their jobs, and the virtual closing down of the IPA.
● Cuban Revolution, Vietnamese national liberation wars, and powerful
stirrings in Latin America led to an explosion of well-researched articles of
colonialism post-1965.
● A. Gunder Frank – was the first to make a massive breakthrough, followed by
C. Furtado, and Theodore Santos (centrist, left-wing dependency economists
from Latin America) and later by Samir Amin and other world system
analysts led by Wallenstein (important mention: Hamza Alavi).

7. 1st view
: a traditional society
that, by and large,
retained the old relations
and modes of
production
2nd View
: a transitional society
that would have, on its
own, gradually
developed into a
modern capitalist society
3rd View
: a society, dualistic in
nature, in which the modern
capitalistic sector co-existed
with the traditional pre-
capitalist sector in a relatively
static balance because a)
the modern impulse was way
too weak to transform
traditional ways in any
fundamental manner but at
the same time traditional
forces were not that strong to
overthrow the significance of
modernity which was again
also backed by the ruling
colonial powers.
4th View
: a more anti-colonial
duality model (partial
modernity/ arrested
growth model) which
views colonial society to
be partially modernized.
The restrictive feudal and
semi-feudal features
were not uprooted but
rather, ‘preserved,’ in the
interest of the colonial
metropolitan, which
ultimately deformed
Indian Feudalism and its
evolvement.
DIFFERENT VIEWS ON COLONIAL SOCIETIES:

8. This effort to
change pre-colonial
agriculture to
capitalist
agriculture and the
different agrarian
structure resulting
due was perceived
early by Karl Marx
in Das Kapital,
vol3.
● Colonialism didn’t preserve the pre-existing,
traditional pre-capitalist modes of production
and relations but rather transformed,
restructured, and rendered them integral parts
of a new colonial structure that ceased to
become neither capitalist (like Britain) nor
precapitalist.
● E.g.- the semi-feudal structure of agrarian
relations was not a carryover from the Mughal
period but rather a result of massive colonial
efforts to transform pre-colonial agriculture into
capitalist agriculture.
● The result was semi-feudal, semi-colonial
agriculture dominated by the colonial state,
world capitalist market, landlords,
moneylenders, etc., exhibiting many capitalist
features such as bourgeois property relations,
commercialization, and others of capitalist
agriculture in nature.

9. Colonialism ultimately transformed colonial societies to become more structured and also
integral to the world economic order, without subsequently leading to the development of a
capitalist economy and structure.
The deficiencies manifested in the capitalist development were then ascribed to initial
poverty and to the density of geographical, social, economic, demographic, and cultural
conditions in the colonies which colonialism found difficult to penetrate and overcome.
It was believed by Marxists (Marx and Engels) and classical economists like Raja Ram
Mohan Roy that the colonizing capitalist society would reproduce its capitalist character
in the colony. As put in the Communist Manifesto, capitalism is a world system that
compels all nations to adopt the elitist or bourgeois method of production even in the
pain of extinction, in short, to become bourgeois themselves. It strives to create a world
after its image, forcefully and otherwise.

10. · 1. Marx mentioned the universal characteristics of capitalism and how it could never be confined to only one nation or area; it will
encapsulate, transform and penetrate the world to establish itself as a world system.
· 2. But what Marx essentially didn’t mention was the fact that colonies do not become capitalist in the same way metropoles do.
· 3. Marx observes that it’s not true that imperialism makes no effort to transform and develop colonies in a capitalist direction,
but because it does so under colonial conditions, these regions became underdeveloped (not conducive to development but rather
regressive) and got transformed into colonial societies; instead of splitting images of the colonial metropolises.
· 4. . What imperialism does is introduce capitalism, capitalist forms of production, and property relations but not capitalist
development.
· 5. The colonies were integrated into the world capitalist system without being able to enjoy its basic benefits like the
accumulation of profits in the hands of the natives and undergoing the industrial revolution.
· 6. Capitalism whose superiority lay in its capacity to transform the productive forces wasn’t implemented in its truer sense in the
colonies because these societies didn’t see any constant revolutionizing of their productive forces and any breakthroughs in industry
and agriculture.
· 7. . Colonial societies were marked by the constant growth of semi-feudalism and stagnation in productivity.
Thus, colonialism was not an advanced stage of social development; rather it was its opposite, negative, and underdeveloped side.

11. IS COLONIALISM A DISTINCT MODE OF PRODUCTION?
Whether colonialism represents a distinct mode of production is highly debated. One powerful case
for seeing colonialism as a distinct mode of production has been made by Hamza Alavi.
• He describes colonialism as Colonial Capitalism that is, “a capitalist mode of production that has a
specifically colonial structure.”
• The two specific features according to him are: “the internal disarticulation and external integration of
the rural economy,” and the realization or the accumulation of the “extended reproduction of capital” not
in the colony but “in the imperialist metropolis.”
In the view of Bipan Chandra however, colonialism doesn’t represent or constitute a mode of
production; it’s a social formation in which several modes of production, relations of production,
and forms of exploitation, including the capitalist mode of production coexist. And this coexistence
is not necessarily marked by peaceful or non-antagonistic character, but by feudalism, semi-
feudalism, bondage, slavery, etc. And all these different modes are subordinated to the metropolitan
capital.
• Its basic feature is the appropriation of social surplus produced in the colony by varied modes of
production.

12. IMPORTANT FEATURES OF COLONIALISM
1. Complete but complex integration
enmeshing of the colony with the world
capitalist system
In a subservient or subordinate position
Not mere linkage or integration with global capitalism or the
world market.
Fundamental aspects of a colony’s economy and society
are determined by the needs and interests of the
metropolitan economy or capitalist class
2. Twin notions of unequal exchange
and internal disarticulation
The articulation of its disarticulated parts through the world
market and imperialist hegemony, with the metropolitan
economy.
The industrial products of the metropolitan economy are
imported into the colony and sold in the rural market thus
closing the circuit of commodity circulation.
The colony thus experiences “a disarticulated generalized
commodity production.”

13. 3. Drain of wealth or unilateral transfer of
social surplus to the metropolis through
unrequited exports.
This aspect was the heart of the early Indian nationalists’
critique of colonialism and their explanation of
underdevelopment and poverty in India.
Max’s rethinking of the role of colonialism in India was also
strongly influenced by this aspect.
Rephrased as the pattern of capital accumulation on a world
scale so that while the surplus is produced in the colony, it is
accumulated abroad.
4. Foreign political domination or the
existence and role of the colonial state; which
plays a crucial role in the colonial structure.
This was given a full place in their analysis by the Marxists;
while the 19th-century Indian nationalists recognized only
after the most bitter political experience.

14. IMPERIALISM AND
COLONIALISM:
TOWARDS A POSTCOLONIAL UNDERSTANDING
- SOBHANLAL DATTA GUPTA
READING: 4

15. IMPERIALISM AND COLONIALISM
◦ Even though, it is customary to trace the theoretical criticisms of colonialism to the Marxist
tradition, before the rise of Marxism there were two other currents – humanitarian and economic,
which also provided their limitations, notwithstanding their criticisms of colonialism.
 The most influential theoretic criticism of colonialism is found in the Marxist tradition which has
been characterized by multiple trends:
 The Mainstream- Marx followed by Lenin, and the most orthodox theorization of the colonial
question was provided by the Communist Int. (Comintern).
 The Second trend- is associated with the viewpoint of Second International (early years of the
20th century during the first World War).
 The Third trend- although inspired by Marxism, it was somewhat disparate and witnessed local
variations of radicalism in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, which were not always guided by the
established Marxist orthodoxy.
An overview of these perspectives would indicate the impact of Marxism on the understanding of the
colonial question for a very long time.

16. MAINSTREAM
•Most orthodox theorization of the colonial question.
•Marx and Lenin.
SECOND
TREND
•The conception of the colonial question was marked
by sharp divisions among leaders.
•The Second International (Stuttgart Congress).
THIRD TREND
•although inspired by Marxism, it was somewhat
disparate and witnessed local variations of radicalism.
•The colonies of the Third world countries.

17. THE MAINSTREAM TREND:
 Marx considered colonialism to be a result of capitalism’s expansionary thrust and which led to the destruction and ‘regeneration’ of the
decaying structures of the colonial structure by forcibly trying to link them with the capitalist market economy.
 He looked positively towards the armed struggles in the colonies arguing they’d play a crucial role in the context of the world revolution.
 Lenin’s understanding of imperialism together with his analysis of the colonial question in the Comintern in the 1920s was regarded as the
guiding principle for mainstream Marxism for several decades.
 According to him, the central question concerning the struggle of the colonial people was to place the question of bourgeois nationalism on
the same table as opposed to imperialism and class struggle in the colonies.
 Lenin adopted a relatively more positive attitude towards the movements launched by the bourgeois nationalists but at the same
cautioned the other oppressed masses who were lending their support to also maintain and strengthen their own class positions (guiding
principle).
 M.N. Roy was of the contrasting opinion; he viewed nationalism through a highly negative lens and considered class struggle as the main
weapon for the consolidation of power in the colonies.
 After Lenin’s death, there was a sharp turn towards left extremism in the Comintern leading to the formulation that bourgeois nationalism
has lost its relevance and that the moment of socialist revolution to be accomplished through class struggle had arrived.
 But again after 1935, confronted with the dangers of the rise of fascism in Europe, the Comintern switched back to their initial position
commonly known as the UNITED FRONT STRATEGY.
 This trend was marked by an element of consistency.

18. THE SECOND TREND:
 Second International’s perception of the colonial question was characterized by sharp divisions
among the leaders.
 The Stuttgart Congress of 1907 highlighted serious differences between Karl Kautsky and other
German and Dutch Social Democratic leaders like Eduard David, Eduard Bernstein, and Van Kol.
 David and the others argued that socialism had no contradiction with colonialism and rather unlike
colonialism it was socialism that was on a true civilizing mission, in regard to the upgradation and
improvement of the colonies.
 Lenin and Kautsky who were part of the Stuttgart congress vehemently opposed this idea of
justifying colonialism in the name of socialism.
 With the outbreak of WWI, the Second Int. dominated by a spirit of Eurocentrism, voted for war
credits- Lenin, Rosa, and James Conolly being the only exceptions who were uncompromising on
their stand of considering war as nothing but a product of imperialist rivalry and contradiction,
costing lives of people of all countries.

19. THE THIRD TREND:
 The theoretical critiques of colonialism assumed another form in the Third world countries after
the end of World War II.
 Though all these notions of anti-colonialism have been broadly influenced by Marxism, a
nationalist, local or regional angularity is evident and has been manifested in the underlying
ideologies of national liberation movements in a number of countries.
 For example- the Maoist notion of anti-imperialist struggle (in the forms of the united front and
the mobilization of the peasant masses), Che Guevara’s “New Man” (focused on guerilla warfare)
in Latin America, African Socialism, the notion of “negritude” which expresses under the Marxist
influence an ‘African Identity’, etc. to name a few.
 While drawing inspiration from the Marxists, in their exposure and critique of colonialism, these
examples highlighted how the culture of violence became an instrument of colonial power and
control.

20. CONCLUSION
◦ Marxism sees colonialism as a form of capitalism, imposing exploitation and social variation. Marx
believed that working within the capitalist world system, the uneven development of colonialism is
closely related.
◦ Karl Marx saw colonialism as a way of capturing the raw materials of the colony.
◦ He views colonialism as a major moment in the historical process of primitive accumulation and
therefore as a precondition for the domination of the capitalist mode of production.
◦ Karl Marx influenced colonialism both post-colonialism and anti-colonialism.
◦ Thus, colonialism is an intricate and extremely complex process that still needs a lot of research and
study into its nature and impact on the entire world as a whole. I hope this presentation and
discussion today was concise, articulated, and helped in the better understanding of the Marxist
conception of colonialism.

21. THANKS FOR
WATCHING
PRESENTATION BY- MISS
DEBANCHITA KASHYAP
ROLL NO: 2022/271
COURSE: POLITICAL SCIENCE
(BA HONS)
SECTION: A
CORE PAPER: COLONIALISM
AND NATIONALISM IN INDIA.