Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 18:08:41 +0100 (MET)
From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens)
Subject: M-G: 1/2 Re: Mariátegui and Inca Empire


1/2 Re: Mari=E1tegui and Inca Empire
[Posted. 10.01.98]

This is part of a debate on the Marxism-General mailing list
(M-G) managed by the Spoon Collective (see http://jefferson.
village.Virginia.EDU/~spoons/), and is also sent to newsgroups.


Hello Juan Fajardo,

Your posting on 07.01, commenting on some earlier ones of mine
(on 06.01), was interesting in two ways. It can be divided, I
think, into two parts. In the first and longer one, you describe
some concrete conditions of the Inca Empire. This was rather in-
formative to me. I must admit that I don't know all that much
about these conditions. And yes, on this point, your criticism
of something that I wrote in July '97 and reposted now is no
doubt correct. It seems I did characterize the nature of the
Inca Empire somewhat incorrectly, using some terms concerning
certain former European etc societies that don't necessarily
apply in this case.

The second and briefer part of your posting was interesting too,
but in another way. Here you're clearly wrong, defending pre-
cisely that important error which Mari=E1tegui made and which was
pointed out in that criticism by Dr Sendepause which I "re-for-
warded", asking if anyone could translate it into Spanish.

You even want to maintain, it seems, that the absurd "parallell"
between the dictatorship of the Inca tribe, on the one hand, and
the present-day post office system(s) (!), on the other, which
Adolfo Olaechea wanted to draw, in the course of last July's
polemics, and which I refuted and made fun of, was relevant and
correct?! The interesting thing concerning this part of your
posting, I think, is how it can be that you hold such an ob-
viously erroneous, absurd, view on this point as you do, if I've
understood you correctly.

I shall comment on both parts of your posting in turn, and I'm
also sending this to newsgroups together with our respective
earlier postings, since I think this might be a discussion of
interest to rather many people.

Why did the question of José Carlos Mari=E1tegui and of the Inca
Empire come up, in the first place, back in last July? I think
I should first explain this to you, Juan, and to others.


THE BACKGROUND OF THE EARLIER DEBATE
ON MARI=C1TEGUI

This above all had to do with some questions concerning the
(present-day) international Marxist-Leninist movement. Mari=E1te-
gui of course was a revolutionary writer of importance to more
or less all of Latin America. As you mentioned too, he founded
the PCP in Peru, in 1928. Now the PCP, which since 1980 is
leading an insurrection, a people's war, in Peru, in the last
couple of decades has exerted a considerable international in-
fluence too, in part in a positive way but in part also in a ne-
gative way. The US imperialists have managed to exploit some
weaknesses that this party has, to lead at least some of the re-
volutionaries in other countries (too) on to a wrong track. 

About this I've written in many earlier postings, supporting the
PCP's struggle in Peru but criticizing its endorsement of the
reactionary 1984 so-called "RIM Declaration". The weaknesses of
the PCP no doubt can be traced back to those of that school of
thought which Mari=E1tegui represented. That's why, in my opinion,
the - no doubt correct - criticism of that thinking which was
made last year by Dr Sendepause is valuable and should be made
available to as many as possible.

The motives of that writer - who is no longer that very impor-
tant Marxist which he once was but is today in reality just
another of those miserable bourgeois swindlers, although admit-
tedly a quite knowledgeable one - in writing that criticism is
another matter. He wanted to show that other swindler, Olaechea,
and the partners of the latter, that he with his knowledge could
be a "valuable" ally in combating the genuine revolutionaries.
Only, Olaechea, wanting to lead the swindling all by himself,
got very angry at the suggestion that his, Olaechea's, country-
man Mari=E1tegui could have made any serious mistake at all, and
railed hysterically against "Teutonic Knights", the German
phony"Marxist" group Dr Sendepause & the Klasberries, in the
first place, and even more against "nuclear Vikings", me, whom
he considered to be his very worst adversary and who among
other things supported that criticism, in the second.

The ancient Inca Empire, in what today is Peru and in the area
of some other present-day states, thus has some particular in-
terest in connection with the international Marxist-Leninist
movement. How did I (try to) briefly describe it, in that July
posting of mine which I recently sent once more? You quoted:

(Rolf M., July '97:)
>The really interesting thing here is that the autocratic
>Inca rule, which was a *dictatorship* of a feudal, also
>slave-owning class, by Olaechea is being put on a par with
>the *purely administrative* postal system!

You criticized my saying "feudal" and "also slave-owning" here,
and towards the end of your posting supported the method of:

(Juan F.:)
>... what the Bolsheviks advocated, thorough examination of
>local conditions and not the application of pre-elaborated
>"revolutionary formulae".

If you by this last meant to say that I applied some pre-elabo-
rated formulae concerning the Inca Empire, not knowing very much
about its actual conditions, then in this respect you do have a
point. I recognize this. You might also be meaning, though, to
say that my criticizing Olaechea's "parallell" between the post
office system and the Inca Empire was such an "application of
pre-elaborated formulae". In that respect you would be quite
wrong. But more on this later on.


THE FIRST PART OF YOUR POSTING, GOING INTO
SOME FACTS CONCERNING THE INCA EMPIRE

What's a feudal society, and were the Incas really a "feudal
class"? What you wrote shows me that I was really at least im-
precise on this.

(Juan F.:)
>... _we_ must avoid applying general labels from one society
>and time period to another, very different, one. Feudalism was
>a system which developed in Japan, China, and Europe, in which
>warlords were granted land and privileges (fiefs) by their
>liege lords in return for acting as vassals, i.e. rendering
>services and goods and providing armed men for the defense or
>extension of the lord's interests. The Tawantinsuyu [Incas
> - RM] never developed such a system.

The definition of feudalism which I had in mind was not as pre-
cise as this. In fact I hadn't thought about how more precisely
to define "feudalism" but had that term in mind as one denoting
a society in which a certain group of people, "a nobility", had
some more or less decisive rights by the fact of their birth,
what family they were born into, as opposed to bourgeois so-
ciety, where wealth, whether acquired or inherited, is the main-
ly deciding factor.

Your pointing to the element of warlords' being granted land and
privileges in return for their providing armed forces for the
defence and extension of the (over)lord's interests, as what
really defines "feudalism", seems to be correct. It tallies with
what's said on this in "The Universal Dictionary of the English
Language" by H.C. Wyld, UK, 1952:

	"*feudalism*, System prevailing in the Middle Ages over
	the greater part of Europe, which determined the rela-
	tions, relative rights, and duties &c., of lord and vas-
	sal, the basis of which was the tenure of land in ex-
	change for certain military services performed by the
	latter for the former."

I haven't checked out how, more precisely, Marx etc define the
term "feudalism" but I suppose it's basically in the same way.
And obviously, as you're pointing out, there wasn't in the Inca
Empire that kind of exchange of land tenure for military ser-
vices. Thus my saying the Incas were a "feudal" class at least
was imprecise.

I admit that I've used the term "feudal" also to denote, in
part, the social systems of e.g. the Soviet and the Chinese re-
visionists, in which those holding "Party cards" of the respec-
tive ruling revisionist parties, were (or are) a kind of "nobi-
lity" which doesn't have an exact counterpart in the "traditio-
nally"-bourgeois societies. This is somewhat imprecise too.

All in all, it probably would have been better if had avoided
that term "feudal class" about the Incas, even if they did func-
tion as a kind of "nobility", and had used some more precise
term instead. I'm not certain about how they should best be
briefly described, though. Calling them a "caste" doesn't seem
quite suitable either.

What was new to me in this connection too was that which you
wrote, that in the ayllus as well [is that the general term for
the local communities that were under the Incas' domination?],
there were (local) nobilities. This seems to be one (additional)
factor which would counteract these local communities' really
having, within themselves, a "communist" character.

In saying that the Incas were "also a slave-owning" class I per-
haps was imprecise too, it seems to me after reading your pos-
ting. But I'm not really certain about that.

Where did I get that "slave-owning" from? Mainly from what I had
read in Dr Sendepause's article (in part 1/2, appr. one fourth
from the beginning - see my "re-fwd" to M-G on 06.01):

>Under the Incas there was the "yanacona"-status which at
>least resembled the slave status of the old empires in the
>Mediterranean region.

And, in the next paragraph, Sendepause wrote:

>It must not be forgotten that also the system of the Incas was
>a system of barbaric human sacrifice, which cannot be dis-
>missed with a reference to religious fervor alone but already
>was a means of repression. A further obvious point was the
>compulsory recruiting of young women from the ayllus and
>the conquered cities for various functions of the Incan system.

People whom you could just put to death "as a sacrifice" seem to
me to have been reduced to a slave-like status. Even if they
were not really used by the rulers for labour purposes, they
were "owned completely" by them. The forcibly recruited "holy
women", though not doing manual labour either, weren't they in a
slave-like position too, similar to the one of the "house-nig-
gers" in the old US South? Despite all this, my term "slave-
owning" perhaps was a bit imprecise, but not all that much, I
think.

You mentioned in an end note another group, the 'mitmaqkuna,
lit. "helpers"', who you say were not actually slaves and among
whom some came to be important military commanders. These I
didn't know about. That group reminds me of another which I
read about in one article by Engels, the mamluks in Egypt who
confronted Napoleon's army there, in they year 1800 or so. The
term "mamluk" originally did mean "slave", but these servants
to the Egyptian king eventually formed a sort of military caste
which I understand had a considerable influence in the state.

I think that my characterization of the Incan Empire, even if
somewhat imprecise - because of my lack of knowledge and also a
somewhat mechanical application of some terms, on both of which
points I hope I can now improve - was correct enough for my
main argument at that time, last July, which was to point out
that the Inca system was based on an *autocratic rule* by a
certain group of people, a *dictatorship*.

On this, you agree too, Juan, saying in your posting that

>The inca extended their dominion by force or the threat of
>force, they indoctrinated the subject populations into their
>own political and economic order, and viciously punished
>dissent. Litte wonder then that some local populations coope-
>rated with the Spanish against the Inca occupiers of their
>territories! Clearly this in no way describes a communist
>society, the very existence of a state precludes _that_ label.

[Continued in part 2/2]





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