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Class before State: the Soviet treatment of African feudalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Ernest Gellner
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Extract

Soviet anthropology differs from its Western counterpart, for better or for worse, by a certain kind of density. It is the social world which is generated by the scholarly activities of the Soviet učenyj, and which he also inhabits, which has this dense quality. Any social structure or institution which he investigates is held firmly in its place by a wider framework, within which it can be shifted and budged only with difficulty. This framework is of course constituted by a set of ideas and questions and concepts which, in a loose way, one can lump together as ‘Marxism’.

Type
Whither the Unwithered State?
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , December 1977 , pp. 299 - 322
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1977

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References

(1) Gellner, E., The Soviet and the Savage, Times Literary Supplement, 10 18, 1974, 1166–1168Google Scholar, republished with diverse comments by Soviet and Western scholars in Current Anthropology, XVI (1975), 595–617Google Scholar.

(2) Danilova, L. V., Controversial Problems of the Theory of Precapitalist Societies, Soviet Anthropology and Årcheology, IX (1970), 269–328Google Scholar.

(3) Kubbel, L. E., Songhajskaja Delžava (Moskva, Nauka, 1974)Google Scholar.

(4) Technology, Tradition and the State in Africa (London, Oxford U.P., 1971), p. 22Google Scholar.

(5) Maretin, Ju. V., Obščina i ee tipy v Indonesii (“The Community and its Types in Indonesia”), Proceedings of the 7th International Congress of Anthropology and Ethnography (Moskva, 1964), published separately (Moskva, Nauka, 1964).Google Scholar

(6) Ibid., p. 4.

(7) Ibid.

(8) See Pershitz, A. I. (ed.), Pervobytnoe Obščestvo (Moskva, 1974)Google Scholar, and also the same author's comments in Current Anthropology, XVI (1975), p. 608Google Scholar.

(9) Khazanov, A. M., ‘The community in disintegrating primitive societies and its historical destinies’ (“Obščina v razla-gajuščih obščestvah i ee istoričeskie sud' by”), in Vestnik Drevnej Istorii (Moskva, 1975). pp 3–13Google Scholar.

(10) Dunn, S. P., ‘The Position of the primitive-communal social order in the Soviet-Marxist Theory of History’. Paper presented to the IXth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnographical Sciences (Chicago, 1973)Google Scholar.

(11) Schapera, I., Government and Politics in Tribal Societies (London, Watts, 1956), p. 1Google Scholar.

(12) Kubbel, op. cit.

(13) Ibid. p. 346: ‘[…] Radcliffe-Brown was not in error […]’

(14) Schapera, , op. cit., pp. 217–218Google Scholar.

(15) Ibid. p. 219.

(16) Ibid.

(17) Ibid. p. 219.

(18) Ibid. Italics mine.

(19) Kubbel, , op. cit. p. 337Google Scholar.

(20) Ibid. p. 360. Italics mine.

(21) Diop, M., Histoire des classes sociales dans l'Afrique de l'Ouest. I. Le Mali (Paris, Maspero, 1971)Google Scholar. Cited in Kubbel, , op. cit. p. 394Google Scholar.

(22) Kubbel, , op. cit. p. 372Google Scholar.

(23) Ibid. p. 339.

(24) There appears to be much Polish work in this area. See Malowist, Marian, Wielkie Panstwa Sudanu Zachodwiego w Poznym Sredniowieku (Warszawa 1964)Google Scholar;Lewicki, Ta-deusz, Dzieje Afryki od Czasòw Najdawniejszych do XIV (Warszawa 1969)Google Scholar;Stepniewska, Barbara, Rozpowszechnianie sie Islamu w Sudanie Zachodnim (Wroclaw 1972)Google Scholar;Tymowski, Michal, Le développement et la régression chez les peuples de la boucle du Niger à l'époque priécoloniale (Warszawa 1974)Google Scholar.

(25) Kubbel, , op. cit. p. 344Google Scholar.

(26) Ibid. p. 345.

(27) Fortes, M. and Evans-Prit-Chard, E. E. (eds.), African Political Systems (London, Oxford University Press, 1940), p. xxiiiGoogle Scholar.

(28) Goody, J., Technology, Tradition and the State in Africa (London, Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 18Google Scholar.

(29) Ibid. p. 19.

(30) de Dampierre, É., Un ancien royaume Bandia du Haut-Oubangui (Paris, Plon, 1967)Google Scholar.

(31) Cf. Lucas, Phillipe et Vatin, Jean-Claude, L'Algérie des anthropologues (Paris, Maspero, 1975), p. 18Google Scholar.

(32) This manner of drawing the big dividing line is in interesting contrast with another notable Soviet scholar, L. V. Danilova, in the work listed above. She draws the line between capitalism and all previous social formations (except the first ?); within capitalism, ownership is decisive, whilst in the other forms, it is power which counts, Kubbel's case for drawing a line in time between earlier and later Sudanic societies, and classifying the later ones as feudal, hinges on the claim that in that later stage, land-ownership did become important.

(34) Andreev, I. L., Problemy social'novo razvitija, Trudy Tjumenskovo Industrial' novo Instituta (Filosofija, Tjumen, 1969)Google Scholar.

(35) Kubbel, op. cit.

(36) The connection between the availability of land and the subjugation of agriculturalists can incidentally be argued both ways. It may be necessary to suborn peasants because land is available, to which they could go if free; alternatively, it may be easy to suborn them because there is no land to which they could go. Kubbel is concerned to counter the argument that one cannot constrain them through control of land when so much land is available.

The fact that shortage of men in relation to plentiful land leads to the imposition of servitude is argued, for instance, by ProfessorFage, J. D., in States and Subjects in Sub-Saharan African History (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1974), p. 15Google Scholar.

(37) Cf. Coulbourn, R. (ed.), Feudalism in History (Hamden [Conn.], Shoe String, 1965), p. 7.Google Scholar

(38) Both professors Dmitri Olderogge and John Hunwick have pointed out to me that this point hinges in part on documentation which purports to be dated in the 16th century, but may be a 19th century forgery. Cf. Levtzion, I., A Seventeenth-century chronicle by Ibn al-Mukthàr, Bull. S.O.A.S., XXXIV (1971), 517–593Google Scholar.

(39) Coulbourn, , op. cit. p. 5Google Scholar.

(40) Argued for instance, by Coquery-Vidrovitch, C. in ‘An African Mode of Production’, Critique of Anthropology, Vols. 4 and 5 (Autumn 1975)Google Scholar, or criticised by Terray, Emmanuel, Long-Distance Exchange and the Formation of the State: the case of the Abron kingdom of Gyaman, Economy and Society, III (1974), 315–345CrossRefGoogle Scholar.