By Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 9 October 2025, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

Preface by the Editorial Board: The following article is the product of discussions with RCIT comrades in Pakistan. It presents, in form of questions and answers, some thoughts about the discussion among the Pakistani left if their country is dominated by (semi-)feudal social economic relations. This issue also touches the question which mode of productions existed in Pakistan, respectively in the Indian sub-continent, before the British Empire began to conquer the region in the 18^th century.

 

This debate is of importance as various kind of Stalinist and Maoist forces claim that Pakistan basically has remained a semi-feudal country and, therefore, the task in the current period would be to support “modern”, “anti-feudal” sectors of the ruling class against the backward, “semi-feudal” sectors.

 

Furthermore, the Stalinist bureaucracy has upheld a mechanistic conception of history according to which all societies in history pass through one and the same sequence of stages of social-economic formations – primitive communism, slave holder society, feudalism, capitalism, and communism. Such a view explicitly excludes the existence of other modes of production like, for example, the so-called Asiatic Mode of Production to which Marx referred repeatedly. ^[1]

 

 

 

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Question: Is Pakistan a feudal country

 

Answer: No. Pakistan is not a feudal country and has never been so in its history. It is a backward capitalist and semi-colonial state, i.e. a country which is formally independent but remains dominated by imperialist powers and, and closely associated with them, the local bourgeoisie. The two imperialist powers which currently dominate Pakistan the most are the U.S. and China. ^[2]

 

Question: What was the dominant mode of production on the Indian sub-continent before it was conquered by the British Empire?

 

Answer: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels never upheld the view that India was ‘feudal’. They considered this region rather to be dominated by the so-called Asiatic Mode of Production. The Stalinist bureaucracy tried to eliminate this concept from its revisionist version of historical materialism (according to which all countries in the world must go through the same chronological stages of primitive communism – slave holder society – feudalism – capitalism – socialism). This undialectical schematism was used as theoretical justification for the strategy of the Stalinist bureaucracy. They declared that all countries in the south were feudal (and not Asiatic). From this they concluded that communist parties had to apply the reformist stageist theory according to which the road to socialism was separated in two different stages. First, there has to be a “democratic” or “anti-fascist” revolution in alliance with sectors of the bourgeoise. Only later, the working class could strive for socialist revolution.

 

However, it is obvious from reading Marx and Engels that they saw the Asiatic Mode of Production as a crucial concept to understand the social-economic development of large parts of the world. This mode of production is basically characterized by:

 

i) The absence of private property of land. The land was owned by the state/empire/commune respective its head (king, sultan etc.) The emperor gave a parcel of the land to a bureaucrat, military, etc. to administer it, to exploit a surplus from the peasants and to collect taxes. However, these subordinates were not the owners of the land, could not bequeath the land to their children, could not sell or lend it to others, etc.

 

ii) The existence of a strong state bureaucracy (Marx called it Asiatic or Oriental Despotism)

 

iii) The existence of a few larger cities (where the bureaucracy was concentrated) and numerous small villages which were relatively self-sustaining and paid regular tributes to the state.

 

iv) The central role of the state to organize an irrigation system to support agricultural production.

 

Taimur Rahman, general secretary of the Mazdoor Kisan Party, published thoughtful works on this question in which he demonstrated that Marx and Engels characterised the social relations in India at the time of the British invasion not as feudalism but as Asiatic Mode of Production. “Given that the theory of feudalism with respect to India finds no evidence in the work of Marx and Engels – they regarded the character of pre-capitalist relations as Asiatic rather than feudal” ^[3]

 

Interesting works about Pakistan’s social relations in the past (and also present) have also been published by the Marxist academic Hassan Gardezi. He believes that the Indian sub-continent was characterized by the Asiatic Mode of Production until the 4^th century, then this was pushed aside by feudalism and then again, at a later point, “the Asiatic mode of production succeeded [the] feudal mode.” While this thesis seems unconvincing to us, it is important to note that he agrees that when the British arrived, the sub-continent was dominated by the Asiatic Mode of Production. [4]

 

Question: Did the British Empire introduce feudalism in India?

 

Answer: No. When the British conquered the sub-continent in the late 18^th century, they modified the mode of production in order to consolidate their rule and to exploit the country. They transformed the land into private property of the local ruling class and, in exchange, the latter agreed to collect a huge rent for the colonial power. In addition, the British modernized the infrastructure in order to better exploit the sub-continent. It lacks any logic why the capitalist British Empire conquering a country dominated by the Asiatic Mode of Production should introduce a feudalistic mode of production. No, they kept and utilized the patriarchal structures in order to integrate the sub-continent into the capitalist world-market as a dependent and super-exploited colony. This is, by the way, an example of the law of uneven and combined development which is the theoretical fundament of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. [5]

 

Question: Should Marxists use the category “feudalists” for the big landowners in Pakistan?

 

Answer: There is a lot of confusion in the debate about feudalism in Pakistan. Basically, feudalism is recklessly identified with “big landownership”, the huge political influence of the big landowners, “patriarchal labour and social relations” or “backward, patriarchal mentality”.

 

Given the widespread use of the category “feudalists” for big landowners, it might be legitimate to use this word in agitation against this reactionary group. However, from a Marxist point of view it is wrong to use this in our more scientific literature. Historically, patriarchal social relations are not unique to feudalism but, in one way or another, have existed and still exist in all class societies.

 

Question: Can Capitalism exist without patriarchal social relations?

 

Answer: No, it can not. In fact, patriarchal social relations have been a necessary part of all forms of class societies. Women and youth oppression has been part of all class societies. So have ethnic and later national oppression. This has also always been the case in modern capitalist countries in the imperialist world and is related to the law of uneven and combined development. In fact, capitalism utilizes these forms of social oppression in order to enhance the creation of surplus value, to divide the oppressed and to ideologically legitimize its rule.

 

This is particularly the case in relatively backward countries, countries where the bourgeoisie does not have strong reserves. Furthermore, there existed forms of slave (or of semi-slave) labour under imperialist fascism as well as Stalinism and similar phenomena exist today in countries like China, Bangladesh, or Vietnam (the so-called sweat-shops, child labour etc.). This shows that such patriarchal forms of super-exploitation are not a sign of feudalism since one can hardly claim that Germany in the 1930s and 1940s was feudalistic or that this would be the case today in the above-mentioned Asian countries. No, such patriarchal forms of super-exploitation are rather an expression of a capitalist class under strains which must raise their profits by the production of absolute (and not so much relative) surplus value, i.e. not so much by increasing labour productivity but rather by lengthening the working day, cutting wages, etc. In short, with world capitalism in decay we will see patriarchal forms of super-exploitation spreading in many countries (including the old imperialist metropolises). The law uneven and combined development remains valid.

 

What the reformists do not understand is that capitalism never existed and can not exist in a “pure” form, i.e. only as an economic relation of exploitation without any other social form of oppression. This is not possible. So, to wait for capitalism to become less patriarchal or even to support the struggle for a pure capitalism is not only reactionary but also utopian.

 

Question: Is Pakistan today dominated by the feudal mode of production?

 

Answer: No. Leaving aside the historical and methodological arguments outlined above, this assumption is wrong for the following reasons:

 

i) While agriculture remains an important sector of Pakistan’s economy its weight has been massively reduced in the past decades. According to the latest official statistics agriculture accounts for 23.54% of GDP and 37.40% of employment. [6] This means that even if one would consider the social relations in agriculture as feudal, Pakistan would still be a capitalist and not a feudal country given the fact that more than three-quarter of its economy is based on the industrial and service sector and that the majority of the labour force works outside of the agricultural sector (leaving aside that a sector of the labour force in agriculture are rural workers and not peasants).

 

ii) Yes, the landowners play an important role in the political parties and the regional and national parliaments. But the class character of a country is not determined by the profession of the politicians. In the imperialist countries most politicians are not capitalists either but rather lawyers, political professionals, doctors, etc. However, this does not give such states a “petty-bourgeois” class character.

 

Question: Is Pakistan’s agriculture today dominated by the feudal mode of production?

 

Answer: No, this is also not true for the following reasons.

 

i) Pakistan’s agriculture is fully integrated in the capitalist market. Marx explained many times that capitalism is generalized commodity production, i.e. the economic activity is focused on the production of goods for the market. [7] Pakistan’s agriculture, if we leave aside the subsistence production of poor peasants (which, by the way, does also not constitute a feudal mode of production), is overwhelmingly production for the market and not for consumption of the landowners (as it was characteristic for feudalism). This is what makes the agricultural products as commodities. Add to this that a significant share of the agricultural production is used for export to the world market (Pakistan’s food exports account for 23% of total exports). [8] Of course, this does not mean that Pakistan’s agriculture would be dominated by “pure” capitalist social relations. In fact, there is rather a combination of capitalist and pre-capitalist social forms of exploitation.

 

ii) Even the rural population earns a significant share of its income outside of the farm sector. A World Bank study of 2007 reports that non-farm income contributes to 36% for farm households and 57% for all rural households. [9]

 

iii) Add to this that a significant number of the rural labour forces are not sharecroppers as the above-mentioned economist Hassan Gardezi wrote in an essay published in 1999: “Most peasants in the countryside are no longer sharecroppers bound to the so called feudals by traditional bonds and extra-economic coercion.” [10] Furthermore, a sizeable sector of farms reports the use of casual wage labour (30% in 1972, 45% in 1980, 50% by 1990, and 40% by 2000). [11]

 

iv) Many big landowners have advanced the mechanization of their farms. As a result, they earn their rent partly from the sharecroppers, partly from the exploitation of casual labour.

 

Question: Does the existence of bonded labour in Pakistan’s agriculture prove that this sector is dominated by a feudal mode of production?

 

Answer: No. The liberals and Stalinists are window-dressing capitalism. Slave labour has been an important part of US-American capitalism until 1865. Today, the US prisons have a whole system where the inmates are forced to work for corporations – hardly an example of free wage labour. Add to this the above-mentioned examples of slave and forced labour slave labour under fascism or various Asian countries today. It is however true, as mentioned above, that Pakistan’s agriculture is characterised by a combination of capitalist and pre-capitalist, patriarchal social forms of exploitation.

 

Question: So how should Marxists characterize the big landowners?

 

Answer: The big landowners are not a feudal class but a patriarchal rural sector of the capitalist class (one could also say a capitalist landed gentry). They live from the production of commodities for the capitalist market and use various backward, patriarchal forms of exploitation to achieve this. They often live in the cities and are closely linked with the other sectors of the ruling class (industrial capitalists, military and state bureaucracy).

 

Question: Is it important to fight against the “feudalist” forms of exploitation?

 

Answer: Yes, of course. As the RCIT has outlined in in various programmatic documents we consider the democratic struggle as central for the working class and the oppressed. [12] It is crucial to organize the landless and small peasants in action committees and to build links with the rural and especially the urban working class.

 

Question: Is it possible to fight against the “feudalist” forms of exploitation without fighting against the capitalist ruling class?

 

Answer: No, this is not possible. The capitalist landed gentry is closely linked with the rest of the ruling class. The history of Pakistan has shown that despite all proclaimed “land reforms” and measures against the “feudalists”, the regimes (including powerful military dictatorships) never touched the power basis of the big landowners. In fact, concentration of land in the hand of a small group of big landowners has increased since the foundation of Pakistan. While the land inequality index was 0.5992 in 1960, it rose – after a brief period of limited land reform in the early 1970s – to 0.609. [13] A radical land reform by expropriating the big landowners and distributing the land to the small and landless peasantry can only succeed as part of the expropriation of the whole big bourgeoisie.

 

It is a reformist illusion of Stalinists and Maoists to believe that industrialization, end of poverty and a process of democratization would be possible today – in the age of imperialism and decaying capitalism – without abolishing capitalism! Contrary to Lenin, they wrongly believe that capitalism is not decaying but still has a lot of reserves so that it has to potential to modernize countries like Pakistan.

 

However, as a matter of fact, the Pakistani bourgeoisie is too poor to mobilize huge capital to invest in the country’s agriculture and to modernize it. It is squeezed at the world market and must struggle to survive. It willingly uses backward patriarchal forms of super-exploitation because this is what it needs given its weakness.

 

The imperialist bourgeoisie has only a limited interest to modernize Pakistan’s agriculture. Yes, in various countries they buy large sectors of the land. But the result is not an end of poverty for the peasants and democratization of land ownership but rather the expulsion of the peasants and more state repression! And why should the imperialist bourgeoisie invest huge sums in the modernization of backward countries?! They already invest less and less capital in their own countries! We are living in the age of capitalist decay and the fall of the profit rate – not an age of rising capitalism. This also means less democracy in all countries – including the imperialist metropolises.