TOWARD THE PRODUCTION OF A MATERIAUSTEPISTEMOLOGY' A review of Barry Hindess and Paul Q. Hirst Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London and Boston, 1975. JACQUES DEPELCHIN** Look at Marx. He wrote ten books as well as the monument that is Capital without ever writing a Dialectics. He talked of writing it, but never started. He never found the time. Which means that he never took the time, for at that period the Theory of his own theo- retical practice was not essential to the development of his theory, that is, to the fruitfulness of his oWnpractice. However, Marx's Dialectics would have been very relevant to us today, since it would have been the Theory of Marx's theo- retical practice, that is, exactly a determinant theoretical form of the solution (that exists in the practical state) to the problem we are dealing with: the problem of the specificity of the Marxist dialectic. This practical solution, this dialectic. exists in Marx's theoretical practice, and we can see it in action there. The method Marx used in his theoretical practice, in his scientific work on the' given' that he transformed into knowledge, this method is precisely the Marxist dialectic; and it is precisely this dialectic which contains inside it in a practical state the solution to the problem of the relations between Marx and Hegel, of the reality of that famous' inversion' which is Marx's gesture to us, in the Afterword to the second edition of Capital, warning us that he has settled his relations with the Hegelian dialectic. That is why today we so miss the Dialectics which Marx did not need and which he refused us, even though we know perfectly well that we have it, and where it is: in Marx's theoretical works, in Capital, etc. -- yes I and of course this is the main thing, we can find it there, but not in a theoretical state (with one remarkable exception which I shall discuss later). (Althusser's emphasis) From: L. Althusser, For Marx, Vintage Books, N •Y 0 970, p. 17 L!.• ~:'The title of this essay was inspired by Manuel Castells' and Emilio de Ipola'sessay "Epistemological practice and the social sciences" in Economv and Society, vol. 5 , 2, pp. 11-144 • ...1.......... """Lecturer, Department of History, University of Oar es Salaam. 317 When initially asked to review the above book, I had suggested the title: "Is History incompatible with Marxist Theory?" From a Marxist point of view, the posing of such a question is symptomatic of an un-Marxist problematic. 1 Nevertheless it did reveal one of my first reactions to the reading of some of the conclusions of a book in which one reads that II Marxism, as a theoretical and a political practice, gains nothing from its association with historical writing and historical research". (po 312) This sentence does not say that Marxism cannot produce history and the whole book is precisely demonstrating how to produce a history through Marxist theory. According to the authors "all Marxist theory:. however abstract it may be, however general its field of application, exists to make possible the analysis of the current situ€ltion" 0 (Po 312) I shall return later to the implications of this v'iew of the relationship between history and Marxist theory 0 At thiB point it can be said that the authors' position foll~ws Marx's own methodological recommendations which is to say that history, as an empirical form of investigation, or as a philosophy, or as a chronological sequence, or as any of meanings usually assigned to it as a "discipline" cannot constitute the starting point for studying a particular social formation 0 Therefore when bourgeois historians, for example, look at Marx as a historian they are in error because Ma.rx did not write Capital. or any of his other works as a historian, but as a theoretician who was struggling to produce a scientific theory of bourgeois society 0 The production of a Marxist theory of bourgeois society took a long time because it required more than a simple rejection of Hegelian idealism or a radicalisation of it. As Marx himself Once stated: "the early rejection of Hegelian idealism was conducted in a Hegelian fashion, and from within the field of concepts forged 2 by Hegelian philosophy 0 The rej ection of Hegelian dialectics required -- according to Althusser -- more than a simple "inversionlr (i. eo putting dialectics on their feet) 0 It required the development, the construction of a theory that owed nothing (once completed) to Hegelian philosophy or the Hegelian method. Long before Althusser, Lenin -- in "What the Friends of the Peoples arelr -- made the same point. 3 In his very valuable essay "Preface to Capital", Althusser argues that Capital is a work of scientific discovery: "the discovery of the system of concepts (and therefore of the scientific theory) which opens up to scientific knowledge what: can be called the Continent of History". 4 318 Again, here it is important to point out that Marx did not set out to discover "that continent" as a historian. What is crucial is the theoretical apparatus he forged in order to understand the modern bourgeois society and the economic basis on which it operated: the capitalist mode of production. 5 The efforts that Hindess and Hirst (from now on HH) go into In order to make a distinction between the practice of history and the practice of Marxist theory is comparable to Lenin's and AIthusser's arguments about the difference existing betweer\ Hegelian dialectics and Marxist dialectics. Obviously the distinction between Marxist practice and historical practice can be generalised to other academic fields. In the quotation above, history can be replaced by anthropology, sociology, political science, philosophy or economics. One of the practical implications of this posi tion is the necessity to struggle against the academic division of labour that has come to characterise the modern bourgeois universities. It is necessary because academic division of labour raised serious obstacles in the production and reproduction of a Marxist theory. The obstacles can take various forms: aoademicism, careerism, elitism, individualism, etc.6 All of which are in contradiction to Marxist practice. The contradictory practices of Marxism and an "academic discipline" can only lead to academic Marxism. An example of this can be seen in the way in which one academic Marxist has married Marxism to anthropology. In the Rise of Anthropoloqical Theory Marvin Harris claimed Marx as an anthropologist because of the interest expressed by Marx and Engels in the work of Morgan. Harris would have one believe that Marx is of interest to anthropologists in so far as he was interested in ethnographical empirical data. As to one of the most important concepts of Marxist theory, the concept of the mode of production, Harris writes: Here we may venture to express our disinterest in the attempt to find out precisely what Marx and Engels intended by the phrase "mode of production" 7 The marriage of Marxism and economics has produced a more complicated situation first of all because of the very object of Capital , and second because of the apparent closeness between Ricardo and Marx. On this question I can only refer to an essay by Suzanne de Brunhoff where she demonstrates, contrary to what economists like P. Sraffa are trying to do, that there is an '''irreducible difference 319 8 between Ricardo and Marx. 11 The difference is so fundamental that it is necessary to distinguish between a non-Ricardian (as exemplified by Sraffa) and an a-Ricardian (Marx) position. Marx was through and through an a-Ricardian because his point of departure was entirely different from that of Ricardo. Marx began by rejecting what constituted the object of study of Ricardo, which is why he called his major work a CritiQue of Political Economy. As pointed out by de Brunhoff, Marx was not interested in constructing "pure economic theory" (de Brunhoff's emphasis): In Marx's theoretical enterprise the economy is not given but it is constituted by the concepts of historical materialism, concepts which specify definite social relations as necessary to and constitutive of the economic "phenomena" of the . 1.1st system". 9 capIta It cannot therefore be argued that Marx picked up where Ricardo stopped as is so often taught in certain courses on the history of econo- mic thought. Ricardo's conception of value and its relation to labour is totally different from that formulated by Marx. The concepts of capital as the product of social relation and not as a sum of values is again also alien to Ricardo. It is for this reason that it can be said that Marx did not simply "complete" Ricardo. Marx started entirely anew: he displaced the problem of Ricardian economic theory.l0 In her article, de Brunhoff acknowledges that her anti-Hegelian treatment of Marx is derived from Althusserl s demonstration that Hegelianism is entirely foreign to Capital.11 The reason for all this long preamble is to point out the similarity between the theoretical premises of Lenin, Althusser, de Brunhoff and the authors of Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production, with regard to the question of how to read Marx. In spite of their sharp disagreements (with Althusser and Balibar principally) HH are motivated in their work by similar obj ectives, that is to produce an ever more rigorous exposition of Marxist theory: Although HH's book is on the pre-capitalist modes, it is Capital which is the point of departure (p. 1). This procedure may appear to be a contradiction in logic. And yet, in doing this HH, even if they donlt say it, were following almost word for word Marx's methodological statements about the production of history: It would therefore be unfeasible and wrong to let the economic categories follow one another in the same sequence as that in which they were historically decisive. Their sequence is determined, rather, by their relation to one another in modern bourgeois society, which is pr eciselythe opposite of that which 320 seems to be their natural order or which corresponds to historical development. The point is not the historic position of the economic relations in the succession of different forms of society. Even less is it their sequence in the idea (Proudhon) (a muddy notion of historic movement). Rather their order within modern bourgeois society. i2 That Hindess and Hirst and Althusser ( especially in For Marx) are operating within the same problematic ought to be clear. Similarly it ought to be evident that they share the same concern regarding the necessity to construct a Marxist theory rooted in a (still to be constru- cted) materialist epistemology. 13 The sharing of these objectives does. not mean, however, that it will result in similarities of views on all the elements and concepts of such a materialist epistemology. It is important to point out this common point of departure between HH and Althusser because reading the book, one may get a different impression because of the fundamental disagreement they have over the relationship between a mode of production and history, and more specifically over what is history. It may also be of interest to point out that HH concentrated their attacks on Reading Capital, (Althusser and Balibar) and that they have practically nothing to say about For Marx. Specifically, HH accuse Althusser and Balibar of reintroducing Hegel into Marxism through a theorization of history based on essen- tialist notions (such as structure) and sequential or structural causation. The problem that Althusser and Balibar ran into is connected to their inability to construct a'-theory of modes of production without resorting to the notion of a phil6sophy of history. It is because of this reintroduction of history (empirical and teleological by definition) that HH can write that "Althusser fails to break with the notion of history at the very moment of splitting from it." (p. 318). It is difficult to disagree with HH critique of Readinq Capital, and it is possible to state this precisely on the basis of reading For Marx which can be seen as as attempt at setting the basis for the construction of a materialist epistemology. A very schematic summary of what Althusser attempted in For Marx might be a useful way of explaining what must be understood by the creation of a materialist epistemology. For Marx can be seen as an attempt to theorize what Marx wrote in Capital, i. e. to explain and demonstrate that, when Marx produced the concept of the mode of production, he was not engaged in a piece- meal effort, but rather that the construction of the mode of production was determined by a definite problematic. We know that problematic by name: historical materialism, but we do not know what the constitutive elements of that theory are and how they were 321 constructed. It is at this level that Althusser's greatest contribution to Marxist theory must be located: rigorous effort to analyze the process which Marx went through in order to construct a theory which operated within its proper field, within bounda"ries set up by itself, and, most importantly, with concepts adapted and only appli- cable {intelligible} to that theory. Althusser analyzed this process of construction through Marx's works, and it is from this analysis that he derived the following catergorizations: early works, works of the break, mature works. 14 In the early works, Marx broke with Hegel, but the break was -- so to speak -- only incremental, i. e. although Marx attacked Hegel, he did it within a Hegelian problematic, utilizing the same notions and concepts. In the works of maturity -- - climaxed by Capital --Marx has not only broken away from Hegel, but he has also produced his own problematic, one which is entirely different, one which cannot even be related to Hegel. It is because of this epistemological break 1S with previous philosophers and economists that one must absolutely reject the notion so often advanced by experts of II intellectual history" that Marx simply put Hegel's dialectics on its feet so that in order to understand Marx's dialectics one has to go back to Hegel. Such an evolutionary understanding of Marx's contribution is totally rej ected by Althusser. 16 This concept of epistemological break between Marx anti his predecessors is an important one not only because of the light it sheds on Marxism, but also because -- through its occurrence -- it locates and identifies, conceptually the obstacles that constantly undermine the production and reproduction of a materialist episte- mology. Furthermore, it is not because Marx managed to bring about and consummate an epistemological break that this rupture is a permanent gain: it has to be reproduced. During his time, Marx had to break away from Hegel, humanism and idealism; nowadays, humanism and idealism still have to be c<:mtended with, along with various forms of empiricism (which are often poorly disguised 'd eo 1oglca 1 ' 1 d'Iscourses, e.g. 't" POSllVlsm, f unchona . }'Ism, structura l'Ism ) ,-. 17 Marx's theory being revolutionary, the only way to maintain, to reproduce that revolutionary character is to constantly reproduce the epistemological break. Marxist theory as a revolutionary theory and revolutionary political practice is being threatened constantly from outside its problematib as well as from within. The outside threats are usually well known, especially if they come from rabid anti- Marxists or II enlightened'! liberals who are II sympathetic" to Marxism. It is when an anti-Marxist position is articulated by a Marxist that it becomes harder to detect the attack. Therefore, 322 the obj ect of the construction of a materialist epistemology must aim primarily at preventing Marxism from slipping back into those philosophies or pseudo-theories which it sought to combat. It seems to me that the authors of Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production intended to liveup to this objective. One sees this immediately in the introduction where they want to establish for the reader the boundaries of their discourse and therefore the boundaries that should be used for doing a critique of it: This book is a work of Marxist scientific theory. It must be judged in terms of that theory, in terms of the field of concepts and forms of proof specific to its problematic .•.. Our constructions and our arguments are theoretical and they can only be evaluated in theoretical terms (my emphasis) -- in terms, that is to say, of their rigour and theoretical coherence. They cannot be refuted by any empiricist recourse to the supposed "facts" of history. (p. 3) This introduction is also the occasion for explaining why the construction of theory has nothing to do with the collection and a'rrangement of data so dear to the vulgarized view of science. They are totally opposed to the conception of science which is defined as beginning "with the careful observation and collection of facts: it ends with their correlation". (P. 2) They cannot accept this because facts are not concrete obj ects which exist autonomously. "They are always the product of definite practices, theoretical or ideological, conducted under definite real conditions". (P. 2) Similarly empiricism must be opposed because "what empiricism represents as given is always the product of a definite theoretical or ideological practice". (P. 4) For HH a fact does not have a passive existence. A fact is not comparable to some sort of raw material which is lying on the ground ready to be used. "Facts are never qiven (HH emphasis), they are always produced. The facts of the sciences are products of scientific practices". (PP. 2-3) The logic behind all this is based on the necessity of being able to prove the existence or non-existence of a particular mode of production on the basis of the concepts which make the theoretical cons- truction of a mode of production possible. They do not see why, for example, the validity of the conception of the Asiatic mode of production tends to be 323 discussed in terms of the "facts" of Indian or Chinese history. And from their: standpoint, John Taylor's critical review of their work would probably be considered as irrelevant and missing the point of what the object of their book is.18 J. Taylor's criticisms of HH and their conception of the Asiatic mode of production is precisely derived from an empiricist position by trying to prove that HH rej ect the concept of the Asiatic mode of production because they have looked at the wrong evidence. 19 HH argument is not articulated around the evidence, but around two basic theoretical points: (1) Marx's own formulation of that mode of production and process of appropriation (taxi rent couple) on which it is based; (2) a Marxist reading a critiaue of Marx. The reading that HH make here of Marx goes back again to the concept of the epistemological break. HH. argues that the concept of the Asiatic mode of production is the result of Hegelian residues in his theoretical work which is why they can state without any apparent hesitation that Marx undoubtedly remained under the influence of Hegelian ideology particularly in respect of the East and Asiatic society (p. 203) It is possible to uncover these Hegelian residues precisely because "the effect of Marx's theoretical work was to produce a decisive critique of Hegel and of all teleology, and a non-Hegelian and anti-teleological theory of history. It is this theoretical work which makes possible the scientific criticism, by means of Marxist concepts (my emphaiss), of the ideological elements in the given texts of Marx". (PP. 203-4) HISTORY. MARXIST THEORY AND CURRENT SITUATION In their conclusion, HH push the practice of epistemological breaking to a point which will appear to mCl-nyas untenable. Unless one accepts the proposition above concerning the necessity to reproduce Marx's epistemological brea~, it will be difficult to follow HH in their discussion on the relationship between history, Marxist theory and the current situation. Because of their extremely unorthodox positions, it is necessary to begin with rather extensive quotations so as to leave no room for misunder- standings. They begin their conclusion by stating that their anti- historical stand will surprise in a work which seems historical: We have no doubt that this book will appear to many people, historians and others, to be a contradictory enterprise. How can a book about pre-capitalist modes of production be 324 abstract and anti-historical? Surely, the sole value of the concepts of the pre-capitalist modes of production is to serve as tools or research devises for the investigation of concrete historical societies? What purpose do these concepts have if they are not used as guides to historical research? II (p. 308) They reply the~selves to this anticipated reaction: Out' answet' to th~se questions is simple. They. are based on a misrecognition, not only of the nature of our book, but of the nature of Marxist theory: a misrecognition which engenders a cosy conflation between Marxist theoretical work and the historianl s practice, a misrecognition which reduces Marxist theory to historical method and to a philosophy of history. Marxism is not a science of history and Marxist theot'etical wot'k has no necessary connection with the practice of the historian. (p. 308) (my emphasis) This anti-historicist/ anti-historical position is elaborated in the conclusion .under' four different sub-headings: "concepts and history", "the object of history", "Althusser1s proposal for a Iscience of history"', "concepts and the concrete". While the above introductory exchange is controversial enough and likely to irritate many Marxists, it is when the authors discuss the object of history that they make their most contt'oversial statement, and possibly the one which will induce many Marxists to dismiss the book as a futile and academic exercise. Again rather than paraphrasing their wot'ds, it is better to quote in extenso: It is the notion of a Mat'Xlst histot'y, of a Marxism confined within the conditions of the historian's pt'actice, which is the contradictory enterprise. Marxism as a theoretical and a political practice, gains nothing from its association with historical writing and historical research. The study of history is not only scientifically but also politically valueless. (PP. 311-2) How can anyone produce a theory without studying history? In order to understand this, one has to examine what HH mean by history 325 (and the historian's practice) and what they mean by Marxism (and the Marxist practice). Clearly, they are striving to re-establish the primary of theoretical work in Marxism. Toward what objective? All Marxist theory, however abstract it may be, however general its field of application, exists to make possible the analysis of the current situation. (p. 312) The concept of the current situation introduced here actually appeared earlier in the book (Chapter VI: The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, pp. 260-307). The concept derived it.s theo~etical status from Lenin's formulations and applications. 20 But why HH decided to ignore what Mao Tse-Tung had written on the practice of assessing the current situation is astonishing. The suppression of Mao's contribution to Marxist theory is in ahal"p contrast to the place that Althusser gave him in F or Marx. Are HH hinting that between Lenin and themsel ves nothing happened to Marxist theory. From 1927 to 1949 (especially) Mao gave numerous examples of how to assess the current situation not only with regard to China, but also with regard to the inter- national communist movement. 21 Throughout their entire text, Hindess and Hirst ignore Mao Tse- Tung's work. This silence is tantamount to a theoretical statement, and yet, this silence should have been explained. As it stands readers may legitimately wonder whether HH consider Mao's contributions as irrelevant to Marxist theory. To this I shall" return later. HH insist, correctly, that the current situation is not and cannot be defined as something which is given by history. Here again, I am sure they will antagonize historians who will argue that it is impossible not to view the situation as, in some ways, a product of a hOlstorical pro cess. Not so say HH: "A historical analysis of the" curre nt situation" is impossible" (P. 312). Because of the implicit definition contained in history, i. e. constituted as an object of knowledge of the past, history is bound to deform the meaning or the manner of grasping and confronting the current situation. Because history tends to rationalize the past, it is likely to rationalize the current situation to digest it and make it part of the body of knowledge of the past. It is this process of rationalization that HH perceive as the element which makes the practice of history irreconcilable with Marxist practice. Their ppposition to the reduction of the current situation to history is predicated on the assumption that it will automatically lead to a teleological history, and, of course, they are against teleological history because: 326 in teleological conceptions of hi story historical time is a continuum, its successive moments necessarily linked by the development of an essence. (P. 312) Although HH derive their conception of the current situation from Lenin, it is also visible in Marx where his confrontation with the current situation (Hegelian philosophy) led him to a scornful rej ection of the then current practices of philosophers who wet"e merely philosophizing about the world when the objective was to transform it. 22 Transformation then must be dialectically linked to the assessment of the current situation. This assessment cannot be conditi oned, determined or defined by its genealogy or its preceding history because: History renders unrecogniz'able that which is the primary object of Marxist theoretical and political practice. It dislocates that necessary connection between theoretical analysis and politics which is the very core of Marxism. It reduces theory to the role of a rationalisation of the real and the politics based on such ratio- nalization to an abstract shadow politics of gesture. (P. 313) This means that history, by its very nature, cannot enter the territory of the current situation, even if there are elements in the current situation which are clearly determined by history (such as the necessity not to repeat previous errors). It cannot oecause politics -- revolutionary politics -- by their very nature require anticipation. Why the current situation cannot be defined by history is not entirely resolved in this dense section on the II obj ect of history", but in the fourth one "concepts and the concrete" and especially in the last two pages of the book: The current situetion exists for Marxist theory only so far as it is given a definite form by Marxist political practice, and in so far as definite problems are designated as obj ects of analysis or criticism within that practice. These problems are problems of political practice and are Ispecified in political terms. ~ (HH emphasis) the current situation is cannot be specified in the same way that the object of an empiricist knowledge is specified. (p. 322) 327 By way of example the authors go on to consider the current situations which Lenin confronted and how they determined the kind of work he produced. With regard to The Development of Capitalism in Russia. they contend that the work is not a history of the Russian economy nor is it " a state description of the given conditions of late 19th century Russia". (p. 322) While correctly pointing out that the work was produced in order to combat Narodnism, the authors are not as convincing in explaining why the theoretical point had to be illustrated by a historical analysis~ 'Empirical' material -- in fact, statistics and information, collected according to definite problems, by definite techniques, and within definite poEtical and social purposes, Lenin had no illusions or fetishes about their purity functions in this book as the object of criticism or as a source of illustration of a theoretical point. (p. 323) For all the logical rigour of the book, readers are bound to ask some questions that HH have not anticipated and/or answered (or provided the elements of an answer). For example~ doesn't the nature of the current situation change with the emergence of a revolutionary situation (HH's transitional conjuncture, Mao's antagonistic contradiction). On this question of the revolutionary character of Marxism, A.lthusser in (For Marx) is much more correct than HH. This is ironical In view Qf the sharp criticisms addressed to Althusser and Balibar in Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production. Althusser's statements and analysis of the current situation as it was confro- nted by Lenin are closer to Marxism precisely because they reaffirm most emphatically its revolutionary nature. Furthermore, for Althusser, Lenin, in 1917, was not acting on just any kind of current situation: Lenin analysed what constituted the characteristics of its structure: the essential {articulations, the inter~onnexions, the strategic nodes on which the possibility and the fate of any revolutionary practice depended; the disposition and relations typical of the contradictions in a determinate country (semi-feudal and semi-colonialist, and 328 yet imperialist) in the period iri which the principal contradiction (my emphasis) was approaching . 23 exp 1OSlon. The underlined words in the above quotation have no place -- as concepts -- in HH vocabulary. Does this omission reflect a judgement on Mao's tI On Contradictiontl• If so, it might be difficult not to go along with those who have rejected the book as futile, arrogant and academic. HH and some concepts: productive forces, relations of production, transition. In this section I would like to turn my attention to the interpretation that HH give to some specific concepts; in part- icular, forces of production and their relation to relations of production, transitional stages. In defining the general concept of a mode of production HH run counter to some very widely held interpretations of Marxism.- Some may see this as a rej ection of Marxist theory altogether. According to HH, a mode of production is defined as: an articulated combination of relations and forces of production structured by the do minance of the relations of production. The relations of production define a specific mode of appropriation of surplus- labour and the specific' form of social distribution of the means of production corresponding to that mode of appropriation of surplus-labour. (PP. 9-10) The assertion of the dominance of relc.tiqns of production over forces of production is in direct opposition to what one reads in the Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Econo..!!:lL~4It may be noted that it is also from the Preface that terms such as base and superstructure have found their theoretical justification. HH consider this mechanical causation that has linked the base and the ideology to be an erroneous and unwarranted reading of Marx: This passage says nothing about the oriqin or ~ of the superstructural forms of the corresponding ideologies. (PP. 16-17) (HH emphasis) What the passage suggests IS that the tI economic structure is the foundation on which the superstructure rests and which therefore defines certain limits to what can be erected upon ittl• (po 16) 329 HH are saying here in a unilineal fashion something which was dialectically articulated by Mao in his essay "Never Forget the Class Struggle:" While we recognize that in the general development of history the material determines the mental and social consciousness, we also -- and indeed must -- recognize the reaction of mental on material things, of social consciousness on social being and of the superstructure on the economic base. 25 As to the distinction between productive forces and relations of production and the combination of the latter, it is based on two arguments. First of all on the necessity to emphasize the role of the class struggle in history, and secondly, on the concept- ualisation of forces of production. HH's understanding of productive forces is definetely not of the kind which r-educes forces of production to the elements of which they are constituted: man, machines , natur~: "In this sense it is not the craftsman's tool or the industrial machine as such that define the productive forces, but the specific form of their articulation into a concrete labour process". (P. 11) This particular interpretation of productive forces is important in view of the distortions that have been given by many Marxist writers, but also by the practices of all the revisionist communist parties whose leadership looked at produ ctive fo rces and relations of production as two separate entities. Thus a simplistic and dis- torted reading of .Marx was a contributing factor to the suppression of class struggles in Russia -- in the name of transition to socialism. This transition was assumed to be possible only after the productive forces had been developed. 26 The notion that the motor of history is constituted by the contradictions between the level of the productive forces and the relations of production is based on a Marxist theory which empties it of its very substance: the class struggle. As history has shown, the privilegisation of productive forces over relationg of production went hand in hand with the proclamation of the non-existence of class struggle. Out of this practice grew an oppressive, repressive, reactionary and revisionist bureaucracy. 27 Although the Chinese revolution was the most important rebuttal of the validity of this conception, the last 25 years in China have shown also that -- even there -- there is still a struggle going on between those who believe in the primacy of the 330 productive forces and those who hold the line that progress (toward Communism) will be achieved only through the continuation of the class struggle -- with the workers and peasants, in command. At the risk of sounding banal, one must reiterate that there is a dialectical connexion between produ