History questions not worth their own thread IV

[Traitorfish]

He means the Polish national curriculum; the content that is taught in schools. What you were putting forward seems to be quite a Whiggish view of history, and what I would have recently called a Marxist one - I'm afraid I owe TF an apology over that; Marxism talks more of tendencies than inevitabilities: slavery tends to evolve into feudalism, but the only sure thing is that it will eventually, as with any system based on conflict, collapse and be replaced by something else.

To be fair, I think it would be accurate enough to identify it as a Marxist-Leninist view of history, I'm just unwilling to attribute it to Marx himself. The MList regimes propagated an extremely mechanically linear and stageist model of history, which Domen seems to be replicating uncritically- hence my speculation that Polish education has not totally rehabilitated itself.

 

[Flying Pig]

It would be ironic to say that Lenin is to blame for fixing Marx' theory of 'stages' in stone, given that his revolution 'skipped' a stage in the original model!

 

[LightSpectra]

Don't forget Stalin censoring the Asiatic model of capitalism because it resembled his own regime too much.

 

[Traitorfish]

According to certain Western commentators, mebbe. More likely it's because describing every backasswards regime as "feudal" and thus every national liberation movement as the "progressive bourgeoisie" suited Soviet foreign policy.

 

[ParkCungHee]

'Feudalism' is a term which should be used very cautiously; it's extremely doubtful whether 'the feudal system' was ever anything more than an academic construct. There's a good WH thread about this somewhere; I think LightSpectra wrote it.

Especially in the context we're talking about. Needless to say, but Wales and the rest of Roman Britain moved on entirely different paths of economic, political and military organization of society after the collapse of Roman Authority.

To say that Britain moved from Slavery to Feudalism is to say that Feudalism is (at least) two very different things.

 

[Ajidica]

Don't forget Stalin censoring the Asiatic model of capitalism because it resembled his own regime too much.

I was under the impression Stalin had died by the time the various Asian dictatorships had changed from 'standard nationalist dictatorship' to 'nationalist dictatorship trying to develop an export oriented economy'.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I was under the impression Stalin had died by the time the various Asian dictatorships had changed from 'standard nationalist dictatorship' to 'nationalist dictatorship trying to develop an export oriented economy'.

He means the theoretically rejiggering the maoists did to make the Qing Dynasty a capitalist economy.

 

[LightSpectra]

I was under the impression Stalin had died by the time the various Asian dictatorships had changed from 'standard nationalist dictatorship' to 'nationalist dictatorship trying to develop an export oriented economy'.

According to certain Western commentators, mebbe. More likely it's because describing every backasswards regime as "feudal" and thus every national liberation movement as the "progressive bourgeoisie" suited Soviet foreign policy.

I'm actually referencing a literal and factual event whereby the Soviets "agreed" to the censorship of Marx's and Engels' description of the "Asiatic mode of production" as per the conclusion of the Third Comintern International c. 1921.

Can't say I really blame Stalin for that one though, the Bolsheviks had a near spiritual reverence for Marx and Engels; kind of causes some difficulties when your political movement is fundamentally based upon the writings of a pair of mediocre sociologists (a field that heavily relies upon scholarly progression of new discoveries or analyses) from a century prior. Had to clean up the 'Biblical contradictions' somehow.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

He means the theoretically rejiggering the maoists did to make the Qing Dynasty a capitalist economy.

What's funny about that is, it was a reversal of previous Soviet policy. Until the 1930s, the Soviets had a decidedly stagist policy, and since China was essentially feudal, they chose to back to the Kuomintang and not the Chinese Communist Party, because China had to experience a good bit of capitalism before it would be ready to do anything, and the Kuomintang were kind of the SRs of China. Only later did the "back all communist parties everywhere" mantra come into place.

 

[Domen]

an extremely mechanically linear and stageist model of history, which Domen seems to be replicating uncritically

I expressed my opinion about slavery compared to feudalism and you draw conclusions about a model of history I propagate.

Nice. Looks like history is all about these two things and basing on one's view about them you can tell what model of history they propagate.

an extremely mechanically linear

I said that feudalism was a progress compared to slavery. I did not say that history in general is a mechanically linear constant progress.

You are making a mountain out of a mole-hill. An a minore ad maius argument that is totally off the mark and groundless.

hence my speculation that Polish education has not totally rehabilitated itself.

Rehabilitated from what ???

It is not even one speculation as you claim - you actually made a few speculations.

One of them is that Polish education has to "rehabilitate" itself (from what?).

Another one is your apparent assumption that the state of Polish education system is currently improving compared to the past (hence your speculation that "it has not totally" rehabiliated itself - which means that you speculate that it is currently during this process and that at least partially it did).

Both speculations are false. And the quality of Polish education system is not improving currently - rather inversely, declining.

Another thing is that one has no right to draw conclusions or make speculations about entire education system of a particular state basing only on one school subject - in this case history. Let alone basing on historical knowledge / personal views of one of former recipients of this historical education.

 

[Flying Pig]

The issue is that 'feudalism', to use a WH turn of phrase, isn't really a Thing. Whether life after slavery was better than life before slavery depended very much on who you were, where you lived, and a whole host of other things: for the most part, Roman slavery was an awful lot kinder than Greek, for example.

 

[Domen]

'Feudalism' is a term which should be used very cautiously; it's extremely doubtful whether 'the feudal system' was ever anything more than an academic construct. There's a good WH thread about this somewhere; I think LightSpectra wrote it.

Feudalism was of course not a homogenous system which existed all around Europe in exactly the same shape and form. Feudalism is a term used to denote common or very similar features of organization of various Medieval societies all around Europe (and also post-Medieval societies since in many countries some elements of Feudalism survived even up to 19th century).

The same case was with slavery - as you already wrote. Slavery in one civilization was not equal to slavery in other civilization, etc. But all of them had that common feature which was owning slaves and having their economy usually to significant extent dependent from / based on slave labour.

Western European historiography has developed a much different definition of feudalism than Eastern European historiography - I stick to the latter because it is much more flexible, more fitting to historical reality of the period, and allows us to describe more various Medieval societies as "feudal".

Recently Western European historiography has indeed started to use this term very cautiously and started to have doubts whether "the feudal system" - as they define it - was ever anything more than an academic construct.

Indeed, Feudalism as defined by Western scholars has never been anything more than an academic construct because their definition and understanding of it has been too narrow, not fitting to the historical reality of huge regional differences in social organization in Medieval Europe, and simply erroneous.

Especially the Western academic concept that Feudalism was everywhere the same in Western Europe, maybe except of England where it was slightly different than "in the Continent". Regarding Feudalism in Eastern Europe - Western scholars were never really interested in researching this subject.

for the most part, Roman slavery was an awful lot kinder than Greek, for example.

In what way exactly?

 

[Flying Pig]

OK, so what exactly do Eastern European scholars mean by 'feudalism'?

In what way exactly?

Most Greek slaves were owned by the state, and the largest employer for them was mining - the Athenians called their mining slaves human cattle, because they lived lives which were extremely nasty, brutish and short underground. Although there were provisions for manumission, a freed slave was always second-class, and was still to a great extent bound to his master - he had to present at his house three times a month, and could not become richer than him. Most Roman slaves, by contrast, were owned by private citizens, with mining being undertaken only by those who had lost their freedom as a result of legal punishment - actually called damnatio in metellum; condemnation to the mine. Furthermore, a Roman slave was freed of most of his obligations when manumitted: he could vote, although he could not run for office, and indeed there are reports of freed slaves becoming extremely rich: Trimalchio in the Satyricon is the classic fictional example. Later in the Imperial era, slaves gained rights such as the right to be heard in court and to complain against unfair treatment which would have been unthinkable to a slave in the Greek world.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm actually referencing a literal and factual event whereby the Soviets "agreed" to the censorship of Marx's and Engels' description of the "Asiatic mode of production" as per the conclusion of the Third Comintern International c. 1921.

I know that, yeah. It was Soviet policy from quite early on- pretty much as soon as the German Revolution turned out to be a dud- to start aligning itself with "progressive" anti-colonial movements, which as with everything Stalin did entailed re-writing the theory to suit the policy. If pre-capitalist regimes outside of Europe were non-feudal, then any native bourgeoisie must be an import from the degenerate capitalist West, and so could not possibly be a fit ally for the workingman's republic; if pre-capitalist regimes were feudal pretty much everywhere, then the West merely gave the already-present bourgeoisies a bit of a nudge, and thus were eminent candidates for "anti-imperialist" cooperation.

The fact that the Asiatic mode of production was a wonky category to begin with probably helped.

Can't say I really blame Stalin for that one though, the Bolsheviks had a near spiritual reverence for Marx and Engels; kind of causes some difficulties when your political movement is fundamentally based upon the writings of a pair of mediocre sociologists (a field that heavily relies upon scholarly progression of new discoveries or analyses) from a century prior. Had to clean up the 'Biblical contradictions' somehow.

A bold claim- both that Marx was "mediocre", and that his work can be reduced to sociology.

blah blah

The point, o loquacious one, is that the whole "slavery > feudal" schematic, both in the presentation of "slavery" and "feudalism" as total and stand-alone economic systems, and in the historical relationship between the two as one of straightforward transition, smells pretty badly of the Orthodox Marxist historiography that would have been taught religiously in Polish schools until 1989.

 

[Ajidica]

I was under the impression that 'Feudalism' was even more useless when describing Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages than Western Europe.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Both speculations are false. And the quality of Polish education system is not improving currently - rather inversely, declining.

Declining? Our students and education system rate as among the best of Europe.

/derail.

 

[Flying Pig]

That's a statement of how it is, not where it is going.

 

[Domen]

OK, so what exactly do Eastern European scholars mean by 'feudalism'?

Basically this is the Eastern European academic view:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism

"(...) a system for structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour (...)"

On the other hand, the traditional Western European academic view was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism

"(...) In its classic definition, by François-Louis Ganshof (1944),[2] feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs (...)"

===================================

According to one of Polish specialists in history of law, prof. Krzysztof Krasowski, the term "feudal state" is not very appropriate. He points out, that "państwo poddańcze" ("serfdom / vassal / homage state") would be a more correct name.

both in the presentation of "slavery" and "feudalism" as total and stand-alone economic systems, and in the historical relationship between the two as one of straightforward transition

I neither presented slavery and feudalism as total and stand-alone economic systems nor the historical relationship between them as one of straightforward transition. I never said that the introduction of colonatus in the Western Roman Empire was the straightforward transition from slavery to feudalism. But the historical fact is that both precarium and beneficium which were components of feudal vassalship were already Roman institutions. And already in late Western Roman Empire we could see the appearance of "Proto-feudalism". Colonatus was developed as a remedy for the shortage of slaves to work AND ALSO for the shortage of land to own by the paupers (since majority of land belonged to owners of relatively few big latifundia). But colons were free people.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Both speculations are false. And the quality of Polish education system is not improving currently - rather inversely, declining.

Yes, since 1989 I think.

 

[Domen]

Yes, since 1989 I think.

No. Rather since early 2000s.