324

[introduction.]

In this period the history of the peoples of Latin America, Asia and Africa was largely influenced by the colonial policy of the European powers.

The Colonial Policy of Spain and Portugal

p The Spanish colonised all Central America and the whole of South America, with the exception of Brazil which came under Portuguese rule. Spain also owned the Philippine Islands which she had conquered at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Ruthless massacres at the slightest sign of resistance, forced labour in the mines and feudal service on the estates of the Spaniards and their descendants, the Creoles—such was the lot of the Indians, those, that is, who survived. Negro slaves brought over from Africa were used as servants in the households of landowners and administrative officials and as a source of labour power in regions where the Indian population had been wiped out. Spain made sure that none of the agricultural undertakings in the colonies were capable of competing with any sphere of production in the metropolitan country. Trade with foreign powers was prohibited and that between individual Spanish colonies was only permitted within strictly defined limits.

p Only two ships a year, with cargoes not exceeding a set value, set sail from the Philippines for the Mexican port of Acapulco bringing back silver to pay the salaries of the Spanish officials resident in the islands and for the purchase of Chinese wares brought over to Manila. The Philippines were not only deprived of any 325 contact with European states but they were also forbidden to trade with Spain.

p In all the Spanish colonies the administrative officials, officers and monks from a wide variety of religious orders were all nativeborn Spaniards. Many Spaniards arrived in the colonies with the idea of getting rich quick by means of plunder and exploitation of the local population and then returning to Spain to live on their fortunes thus acquired. The descendants of the conquistadores and the early settlers—the Creoles—were soon to become powerful parasitic landowners exerting control over the local population including a relatively large class of half-caste craftsmen and traders who supplied them with whatever wares they might require. However, even the Creoles were given little say in the administration of the colonies (during the whole period of Spanish rule only four of the total 160 vice-roys were Creoles and only 14 of the 602 captains general) and their economic and political rights were restricted.

p Opposition to the metropolitan country was to grow up among the Creole population. A Creole intelligentsia, infiltrated to a small extent by half-castes as well, was gradually to emerge and by the eighteenth century had become quite sizable. It voiced the interests of the privileged Creole section of the population which was demanding an extension of its rights, abolition of the restrictions imposed upon it and changes in the country’s economic and taxation policy. However, this opposition sought no backing among the popular masses. The struggle of the common people against colonial exploitation was purely spontaneous and the frequent armed uprisings were suppressed with ruthless cruelty. Once Spain had been reduced to the status of a second-rate power after the War of the Spanish Succession, it became much harder for her to maintain the enforced isolation of her colonies and her former monopoly of their trade.

p Contraband trade by the other European powers developed on an increasingly wide scale, since it enabled the local merchants to make considerable profits. This led to a decline in the revenue gained by Spain from the colonies. Charles III (1759-1788) made efforts to expand the existing ties with the colonies, and Spanish merchants were granted the right to trade with the colonies from all Spanish ports. However, although during the ten years following his reign the volume of legal trade multiplied sevenfold, a good number of foreign goods were still traded as Spanish ones. Contraband trade increased greatly, and absolutist Spain, who lagged behind her advanced European neighbours, found it more and more difficult to hold on to her extensive colonial possessions.

The Portuguese colonial system was centred on a network of fortified trading posts spreading from the African coast to India 326 and Macao which had been seized from China. Since they lacked the manpower and wherewithal to administer large territories, the Portuguese made good use of their trading bases and supremacy at sea in order to establish control over the main sea routes to the East and retain a monopoly of the spice trade. They set up a base on the Moluccas, obliging the local population to supply them with the cloves and nutmeg they produced for ridiculously low prices. Their possessions in Malacca enabled the Portuguese to control the trade route from India and the Middle East to China and Malaya, plunder the vessels of other countries and subject them to extortionate requisitions. However, by the seventeenth century Portuguese domination of the East had been undermined by the joint efforts of the Dutch and the British who had already reached the stage of bourgeois development. In the seventeenth century the Portuguese held only a few of their former strongholds, while the majority of their possessions had fallen into the hands of the Dutch. In 1640 the capture of Malacca marked the final demise of Portugal as the leading colonial power in the East.

The Colonial Policy of the East India Companies

p The heyday of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism, when colonial policies were dictated by the interests of the ruling classes of these two feudal monarchies, was followed by a period when the colonial policy of the bourgeois class, now asserting itself in the more progressive European states, determined the course of overseas development.

p In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the foundations of a colonial system in keeping with the interests of the powerful commercial bourgeoisie were laid. It is no coincidence that the first steps in this new colonial policy were undertaken by the Netherlands which emerged as an independent state after the bourgeois revolution had freed the country from the rule of absolutist Spain. In 1602 the formation of the Dutch United East India Company after the amalgamation of a number of rival trading companies gave rise to the first large-scale limited company with subscribed capital, which was granted a monopoly of trading rights in the East. Subsequently the Dutch company was to provide a model for other similar companies in particular the English East India Company originally founded in 1600.

p In the seventeenth century the Netherlands presented a classical example of a capitalist country and it was not long before that, shoulder to shoulder with the English in a common drive against Spanish and Portuguese colonial supremacy, the Dutch 327 succeeded in putting an end to Portuguese domination (in 1581 Portugal passed to the Spanish Crown). The Dutch gained possession of many former Portuguese colonies such as the Cape Colony at the southern tip of Africa, outposts in the Persian Gulf, and Malacca in 1640.

p An extremely significant prize was the Spice Islands, where the Dutch skilfully turned the hatred of the local population for the Portuguese and the rivalry between the local princedoms to their own advantage. Joint actions undertaken with the English did not lessen the acute rivalry in the competition between the English and Dutch trading companies. After the massacre of the English at Amboina in 1623, the English company was ousted from the spice trade and subsequently from most parts of Indonesia.

The centre of the Dutch colonial empire which grew up in the Far East in the seventeenth century was Java. The Dutch company succeeded in capturing territory in the small coastal princedom of Jakarta, where a new colonial capital, Batavia, was built on the ruins of the former capital. This step marked the beginning of the transformation of the Dutch trading company into a colonial organisation complete with territorial possessions. For several decades the Dutch were obliged to come to terms with large states then existing in Java. Violence and cruel repressive measures to which the population of these weak, backward countries were subjected were to be found side by side with complicated intrigues aimed at instigating clashes and feuds between the local princedoms.

Indonesia in the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries

p In the seventeenth century the most powerful state in Java was Mataram. Since the strong Majapahit Empire had fallen under concerted attack of the vassal princedoms in the coastal regions whose rulers had adopted Islam, Java had consisted of a large number of states carrying on bitter feuds with one another. The majority of these states were later to be united under Mataram, centred on the fertile, densely populated central and eastern parts of the island, which had also been the heart of the culturally advanced and prosperous Java of the Middle Ages. In the seventeenth century the sultan of Mataram adopted the title Susuhunan (he to whom all submit) and continued to extend his power.

p In Western Java another fairly strong state by the name of Bantam had emerged by the seventeenth century. As had been 328 the case with the sultanate of Atjeh in Northern Sumatra, Bantam owed its ascendancy to changes in the main sea routes. So as to keep out of the way of the Portuguese and avoid crippling requisitions merchants from India and the West had by this time started to use a route along the western coast of Sumatra and the Sunda Strait.

p In the coastal regions of Sumatra, Kalimantan and other islands power was in the hands of a large number of feudal princedoms. In the interior of these islands tribal society was slowly disintegrating and class society gradually emerging. The colonial regime set up by the Dutch East India Company was instructed to make its main task retention of the monopoly of the export of costly spices and other produce of Indonesia. The Dutch established firm control over these areas chiefly by means of forcing on various of the warring princedoms treaties of alliance and assistance and also by actively supporting various local rulers against popular uprisings or by taking sides in disputes of dynastic succession. It was methods such as these during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that first enabled the Dutch to foist treaties securing them trade and opium monopolies on the local rulers and later to extend the Company’s territorial possessions over most of Bantam and Mataram. Dutch interference in dynastic strife in Mataram in the middle of the eighteenth century led to the eventual division of the once powerful princedom into two smaller vassal states Surakarta and Djokjakarta. These two states, which were completely under Dutch control continued to exist throughout the period of Dutch rule.

p In the territories which had become Dutch possessions the Company initially employed methods of indirect administration. It did not interfere in administration by the former feudal lords, who had since become little more than vassals and officials in Dutch service and obediently carried out Dutch orders in connection with deliveries of the necessary produce as required. From the eighteenth century onwards they were to organise the introduction of a new crop in local peasant holdings, namely coffee.

p Wars against East Indian princedoms outside Java were fought in defence of the existing trade monopoly and so as to prevent penetration of the area by European rivals. As the Dutch continued their territorial expansion and punitive expeditions they finally resorted to forming an army made up of local soldiers, exploiting national and religious differences to their own ends. The Spice Islands were to become the scene of particularly bitter fighting in the Dutch Company’s drive to defend its trade monopoly. So as to ensure more effective control over the export of cloves and nutmeg the Dutch permitted these cultures only on two specific islands namely Amboina and Banda. Elsewhere spice 329 fields were destroyed, and as a result the local population which had long since depended on these crops for its livelihood was condemned to hunger. In order to combat contraband and ensure that spice prices in Europe remained as high as before, the Dutch resorted to wilful destruction of spice crops and this resulted in frequent uprisings among the desperate, starving natives. Punitive expeditions against the people of the Banda islands ended in their almost total extermination. The few survivors who were obliged to flee to the arid mountain regions soon died out from starvation. The Dutch then attempted to set up their own plantations relying on slave labour. The Dutch planters were permitted to go and round up slaves on the adjacent islands, and the slave trade soon became a flourishing concern providing yet another profitable export. The warlords from Sulawesi (Celebes) handed over to the Company the prisoners of war they captured in the course of local feuds with neighbouring rulers, and also their tribesmen. The slaves that were exported to Java were then resold elsewhere at much higher prices.

p By the eighteenth century, however, the Dutch East India Company was no longer in a position to defend its trade monopoly and was obliged to make a number of major concessions to England. By means of contraband the British East India Company gradually gained a foothold in Indonesia and soon the fabulous profits of the Dutch Company gave way to a deficit. By issuing new shares and state bonds the Dutch government headed by the Stadholder which had a vested interest in the Company’s dealings succeeded for a time in concealing this deficit. The illegal contraband indulged in by the Dutch officials themselves also served to undermine the Dutch trade monopoly. None of the many measures applied were successful in putting an end to this illegal trading. Britain, which by this time had overtaken Holland in its economic development, dealt a number of serious blows to Dutch interests in the course of a series of trade wars. The outcome of the war of 1780-1784 deprived the Dutch of several colonial possessions and gave British ships the right to sail in Indonesian waters. By this time Britain had scored a number of outstanding successes in India and consolidated its trade links with the Middle East and China.

p In India the Dutch did not even attempt to compete with the English and French companies installed in the country. They concentrated their efforts merely on maintaining their trading posts on the coast which were important for the export of Indian wares to Indonesia and the Far East.

In their penetration of India, Britain and France pursued policies similar to those of the Dutch (exploiting rivalry between local rulers, recruiting forces of native soldiers or sepoys, 330 concluding subsidiary agreements, administration with the help of acquiescent local rulers, and territorial expansion so as to turn trading companies into centres of colonial expansion at the expense of local states).

The Fall of the Great Mogul Empire

p In the first half of the seventeenth century the economic power of the Great Mogul Empire was still in the ascendant. The unification of most of India under the Moguls and a decrease in feuds between local rulers created favourable conditions for the development of agriculture and crafts and the growth of foreign and internal trade. For the first time different regions of the country started to specialise in particular crops. The substitution of money taxes for taxes in kind was to have a marked effect on the natural economy of the village communes, giving rise as it did to increased commodity-money relations and internal exchange and the appearance of the first manufactories. However the emergence of capitalist elements within the framework of a feudal empire, based on the unification of various peoples achieved by means of force, was bound to prove a slow and tortuous process. A number of features of Indian society such as the self-contained village communes, the caste system, frequent invasions by foreign conquerors all served to hold back capitalist development. As the Mogul Empire extended the frontiers so the exploitation of the main producers, the peasants, was intensified.

p The system of military overlords and vassals introduced by the Moguls led to the emergence of a new social group, that of powerful vassals employed as local governors who were to become in practice semi-independent rulers.

p Feudal oppression gave rise to frequent spontaneous popular movements against Mogul rule, many of which were of a religious sectarian character. National minorities also rose up against Mogul rule on numerous occasions.

In the seventeenth century a Sikh movement grew up in the Punjab from small beginnings in the preceding century. It attacked the caste system and the feudal exploitation practised by the Moslem overlords. Large sections of the peasantry joined the movement and the idealisation of social patterns based on the commune led the Guru (teacher or leader) of the Sikhs, Govind Singh (1675-1708), to intensify the struggle against the feudal regime in order to set up the "true kingdom”, in which all land would belong to the Sikh commune. This revolt against the Mogul Empire which was led by the peasant Banda after the death of Govind was to spread throughout the whole of the Punjab. It was onlv with great difficulty that the army of the Mogul state succeeded in suppressing the movement, and then only for a time. 331 Later, when the central power of the state had grown much weaker the military leaders of the Sikhs took advantage of the situation and declared the Punjab independent in 1765 under a Sikh commune (or khalsa). However, when the Punjab succeeded in asserting itself as an independent state the Sikh military leadtis (or sirdars) were to set themselves up as powerful landowners after seizing land from the Afghan and Mogul nobles.

The Revolt of the Marathas

p The revolt of the Marathas was at one and the same time a popular revolt against the powerful landowners and an attempt by the lesser Maratha landowners to free themselves from the yoke of the Moguls and their vassals. This struggle for independence was led by the talented commander Sivaji Bhonsla, who was able to rally the people to his cause and inspire confidence in them. Relying mostly on the peasantry, Sivaji Bhonsla mustered a competent regular army which was close-knit thanks to its ethnic homogeneity and common aims. By 1674 most of the land inhabited by the Marathas had been freed from foreign rule and Sivaji Bhonsla declared himself the independent ruler of Mahalashtra. After the Mogul Moslems had been driven out land taxes weie i educed by approximately one-third.

p However the Maratha landowners then proceeded to seize the large landed estates of the Moguls and aspire to greater power. Feuds which sprang up after the death of Sivaji facilitated temporaiy successes of the Moguls against the Marathas. Sivaji’s son and heir Sambaji was captured and executed and his small grandson was taken away to the capital of the empire.

p At the beginning of the eighteenth century Maharashtra was again declared an independent state. While power was nominally in the hands of Sivaji’s descendants, in practice the Marathas were ruled over by the first minister or peshwa and his lineage. It was Poonah, the site of his family home, that was made the new capital of the peshwas. The more powerful landowners, not content with the exploitation of the Maratha peasants, seized extensive new territories. The severely weakened power of the Mogul state was not in a position to contain the Maratha conquests which soon extended fiom the Indus valley to the Bay of Bengal. On this territory apart from the state of Maharashtra four other Maratha pi incedoms were set up which formed a confederation presided over by the peshwa.

p After the death of the Mogul emperor Aurangzeb (1658-1707) who had asserted Mogul power over most of India and succeeded, temporarily at least, in suppressing the revolts of the Marathas and the Sikhs, the final disintegration of the empire began. The 332 struggle among his sons for the throne facilitated the secession of various territories with a more or less homogeneous population and the transformation of various local governors and powerful vassals of the Mogul Empire into independent rulers. Not only did independent Maratha princedoms spring up and the Punjab declare its independence but the princedom of Jat was to appear near the very capital of the former empire. In the south the independent states of Hyderabad, Mysore and the Carnatic were proclaimed. Meanwhile in Bengal, while the nominal rule of the Moguls still existed it was the Bengal nabobs who in practice ruled the enormous area.

p In 1739 Nadir Shah of Persia invaded the country, capturing and sacking the imperial capital of Delhi, although he failed to bring India under his sway. Then came an attack by the Afghans after they had set up their own independent state under the leadership of Ahmad Shah. These invasions dealt the final blows to the Mogul Empire. The Afghans subjugated the Punjab, Kashmir and considerable territories on the eastern bank of the Indus and captured Delhi.

p The Marathas who aspired to supremacy within the shattered empire tried to ward off the Afghan conquerors. After taking Delhi they succeeded in throwing back the Afghans to the far bank of the Indus. However, by turning to his advantage the conflicts between the Moslem sultans and landowners and the Hindu Marathas and with the help of a new army, Ahmad Shah was to prove victorious in the end. However, like Nadir Shah he was unable to gain a firm hold over Indian territory. Most of the territory he seized in the Punjab was that of the Sikhs. Weakened as they were by this long series of wars the Marathas did not succeed in setting up a new dynasty in the Moguls’ stead, still they constituted a formidable power well able to defend its independence.

The fall of the Mogul Empire was the outcome of a deep-rooted crisis in this multinational feudal empire. Some of the independent princedoms which emerged as a result, such as Bengal, Hyderabad and Maharashtra could have provided the basis for the formation of national states thus accelerating the development of capitalist social and economic patterns. But such prospects were rudely shattered when the era of European conquests began.

Anglo-French Rivalry
and the First Territorial Seizures

p Increasing penetration on the part of European traders had already started to influence internal developments within the Mogul Empire some time before its final collapse. In the Ganges 333 delta on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts a large number of trading posts and forts were set up by the European trading companies. Finding their hands tied in Indonesia, the English turned their attention to India and the Middle East during the first three decades of the seventeenth century. The French East India Company set up on the initiative of Colbert and afforded support from the absolutist monarchy built a number of trading posts centred round a main stronghold in Pondicherry south of Madras. The main centres of the English traders were in Madras and Surat, and near Calcutta. After Bombay had been handed over to the Company in 1668 by King Charles II who received it as part of the dowry of the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza, the administrative centre of the English Company on the West coast was transferred there from Surat since Bombay was a more convenient port. Side by side with the English and French trading stations Danish and Norwegian ones were also set up after permission had been granted them to trade by the Great Moguls who themselves had vested interests in the development of foreign trade.

In the middle of the eighteenth century when the central power was already weak, separatist tendencies were on the increase and rivalry between the powerful nobles was rife, the European companies made the most of the situation and started to seize Indian territory. The main rivals in this drive for territorial expansion were the English and French trading companies. At the outset the French scored considerable successes. The resourceful governor of the French trading station Dupleix was the first to employ the tactics evolved by the Dutch. He started to set up an army of native soldiers under the pretext of defending the rights of various feuding nobles and affording them assistance, then obtained permission to station his troops at various strategic points in Indian territory, ensuring that the cost of their upkeep was paid for by the local Indian rulers. These so-called subsidiary treaties had enabled the French by the 1740s to gain control over the large princedoms of Hyderabad and the Carnatic which presented a serious threat to British strongholds in India, in particular to Madras. This situation led to India becoming the arena of the Anglo-French struggle for colonial supremacy. During the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) the British Company with the firm support of the country’s now well-consolidated bourgeoisie gained the upper hand over the French, but the rivalry between the two powers was only finally decided by the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). The decisive stage of the war was the capture and subjugation of Bengal. All European colonialists had their eyes on this densely populated province, extremely rich in natural resources. The British Company had 15 large trading posts in 334 Bengal, the main one being in Calcutta where there were 150 warehouses. The extortion of Indian wares and craftsmanship at rates extremely detrimental to local interests served to rapidly undermine the Bengali economy. The Nabob Suraj-ud Dowlah who came to the throne in 1756 attempted to consolidate Bengal’s independence and put an end to the threat of British domination. After opening hostilities and capturing Calcutta, the Nabob tried to make use of Anglo-French rivalry and seek help Irom the French. English troops sent out from Madras under the command of the influential colonial commander Robert Clive wellversed both in the military arts and the skills of diplomatic intrigue and bribery succeeded in beating back the Nabob’s forces.

The Rape of Bengal

p However, the Nabob’s troops put up strong resistance. Clive concluded a secret treaty with Mir Jafar, one of the Nabob’s chief military commanders, the latter agreeing to help Clive in return for the Nabob’s throne. At the battle of Plassey (1757) 900 British soldiers and two thousand sepoys routed the 90,000-strong army of the Nabob, thanks to superior arms and military organisation and the treacherous blow dealt to the Nabob’s cause by Mir Jafar. Suraj-ud Dowlah was taken prisoner and later executed. The reckless plunder of the Bengali capital of Murshidabad brought the East India Company an enormous revenue of 37 million pounds, 21 million of which went to line the pockets of Clive, other officers and company officials.

p Mir Jafar was installed on the throne, which meant that the British Company now had a free hand. Trade in Indian raw materials, yarn and fabrics developed apace. The Company removed various nabobs who incurred their displeasure, on each occasion securing enormous bribe money from the aspiring candidate. The attempt on the part of Nabob Mir Kasim to obviate the illegal tariff-free trade engaged in by the Company and its agents led to an open conflict. Mir Kasim supported by the Nabob of the Oudh princedom and the Great Mogul Shah Alam II decided to curb the colonialists’ activity by force of arms. However, the united Indian forces were routed and the Great Mogul who was taken prisoner was obliged to present the Company in 1765 with a license giving them the right among other things to collect taxes and maintain an army in Bengal. Such patterns of dual administration were made wide use of by the Company throughout Bengal. The task of collecting taxes was entrusted to tax-farmers who gathered in enormous sums for the Company, with which it was able to cover its military and administrative expenses and 335 buy up Indian wares at very low prices to be sold for an enormous profit in Europe. Over a period of ten years the Company made 27 million pounds profit by means of this commerce.

p The plunder of Bengal and the exploitation of the local population there reduced the country to a state of abject poverty. The tax-farmers squeezed taxes out of the peasants quite ruthlessly. As a result, many of the peasants were ruined and driven off their land.

p The local craftsmen who were obliged to sell their wares to the Company’s agents at very low prices were also condemned to ruin. The Company’s trade monopoly encroached on the sphere of activity of the local merchants soon making it impossible for them to continue to gain a living, although at the early stage of foreign penetration the presence of the foreigners had brought them added profits. A widespread famine wiped out almost a third of the population of Bengal in 1771, while in that same year the Company succeeded in securing still larger profits than usual. The plundering of India was to prove an important factor in the process of primary accumulation in England, thus serving to accelerate the course of the country’s industrial revolution.

By the end of the 1780s the results of the advance of the English textile industry were to make themselves felt in Bengal. The Company cut down on its purchases of fabrics in India, bringing about the ruin of thousands of weavers. Imports of Indian yarn were soon cut down as well. Impoverished craftsmen returned to the villages in desperation, prepared to rent land on any terms, however crippling. This contributed more than ever to the intensification of feudal exploitation. The famine in Bengal, the Company’s inability to pay the British government the fixed annual dues of 400,000 pounds, and the struggle waged by sections of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie not connected with the Company against the latter’s privileges all contributed in varying measure to the direct intervention of the British Parliament. The Regulating Act of 1774 provided for the appointment of a Governor-General, to whom the governors of Madras and Bombay were to be held responsible. The Governor-General and the members of his council were appointed by Parliament. Thus the Company, while retaining its monopoly as a trading organisation and its territorial possessions, was now to a certain extent subject to parliamentary supervision. The first man to be appointed Governor-General was Warren Hastings. His reforms did not ease the burden of the Bengal population. Ample scope for speculation and illegal profiteering on the part of civil servants and the Company’s staff still abounded.

336

Resistance in Mysore
and the Maratha Confederation

p In the south by means of subsidiary treaties the Company succeeded in bleeding dry and then virtually annexing the Carnatic to its other possessions. It also attempted to take over some of the Maratha princedoms, but the first military effort in this direction was effectively repulsed. The Company saw a threat to its expansionist plans in the princedom of Mysore, which during the reign of Sultan Hyder-Ali had become much stronger both politically and economically. Mysore was not only unwilling to make concessions to the Company, but thought that in alliance with the Marathas and with the French help it might succeed in driving out the British from their lands.

p The French fleet soon appeared off the coast of Mysore. Meanwhile the British Trading Company was unable to count on help from Britain since she was at the time involved in the American War of Independence in which the colonists were supported by France, Spain and the Netherlands. Once again fanning feudal contradictions to serve their own purposes, the Company succeeded in winning over to their side one of the largest Maratha princedoms Gwalior with the promise of some territory near Delhi, and then concluded a treaty with the Maratha confederation in 1782. Mysore continued its struggle against the British under the leadership of Hyder-AH’s son Tipu who succeeded him on the throne and who nursed a bitter hatred against the English. Once the war with the USA, France and Spain was over (in 1783) and the French fleet had been recalled the British were able to settle accounts with Mysore. Mysore was as yet intact and subsequent reforms introduced by Tipu, which served to put a check on feudal patterns of exploitation, made the princedom a more close-knit state. Tipu meanwhile had not given up hope of driving out the British and attempted to persuade other princedoms to support him in this venture. Hoping that clashes of British and French interests would play into his hands Tipu relied for help on revolutionary France. The British East India Company, which meanwhile had succeeded in cutting Mysore off from the rest of the continent, made use of the services of the vassal princedom of Hyderabad, representing the consolidation of Mysore to the other Indian princedoms as a threat to their own power, and promising them parts of Mysore if it was defeated. It took two costly battles to break Mysore’s resistance, after which the princedom was exposed to ruthless attacks by the united forces of the East India Company, the Marathas and Hyderabad in 1790. After two years of fighting a treaty was forced on Tipu, obliging him to surrender half of his princedom. Nevertheless what remained of Mysore was 337 still independent and this independence Tipu and his people were still firmly resolved to defend.

p After the French revolution, when Anglo-French rivalry for supremacy in Asia became much more acute, the British became greatly alarmed at the growing French influence in Eastern Hyderabad, Mysore and the Maratha princedoms. Tipu tried to conclude an alliance with revolutionary France and the British used this attempt as a pretext for attacking Mysore once more, again with the help of Hyderabad. In this unequal struggle Mysore suffered a decisive defeat. In the course of the heroic defence of the capital of Seringapatam Tipu fell and the city was subsequently sacked by the invaders, who seized yet another large portion of the princedom. A powerless six-year-old was placed on the throne, a member of the Hyder-Ali dynasty which had been overthrown long before.

Although a considerable part of India still remained independent, by the end of the eighteenth century Britain was in possession of all key positions in the country and had succeeded in ousting all possible European rivals. The enormous sub-continent had become a British colony.

China in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

p In 1644 Manchurian nobles had seized Peking, proclaiming the Manchurian prince as Emperor of China and founder of the new Manchu or Ch’ing dynasty (1644-1911). This event ushered in a long train of wars which lasted right down to 1683. The resistance of the nobles in the south who had attempted once again to take refuge and lie low on the far bank of the Yangtze had been broken by 1647 but the main core of the resistance movement was now the peasantry and the non-Chinese peoples that lived to the south of the Yangtze and in the Sinkiang Valley. The most effective resistance was put up by the peoples of the south-western regions, who fought not so much in support of the Ming dynasty as for their independence against the oppressive rule of the central state apparatus of the Empire. Bitter fighting also went on in the south-east where the Chinese peasantry fought side by side with the peoples of the coastal regions and the island of Taiwan. However, mass treachery on the part of the Chinese nobles and the lack of co-ordination between the various uprisings enabled the Manchurians to subjugate the whole of what is now Central and Southern China.

p The Manchurians did not introduce any changes into the social structure which had existed under the Ming dynasty, nor did they deprive the Han landowners of any of their revenues 338 and privileges. The stratification of the peasantry which had started towards the end of the Ming era, led to the emergence of a class of petty and medium landowners, who by the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century had come to form a distinct social group, whose small and medium landed estates were private property. The former feudal administrative apparatus also remained intact, likewise the complicated exams required for promotion in rank which ensured that all offices remained the province of the powerful landowners. A considerable part of the privately-owned land was now in the hands of the hereditary Manchurian nobility, military commanders and Buddhist priests. While a section of the peasantry also owned private plots, the vast majority were either landless or did not own enough to keep themselves and their families. While formally they remained free tenant farmers, in practice they were bound to the land by debts and various other obligations. There were also serfs who worked state lands (the revenue from these went to the upkeep of the court and the National Guard, etc.) but these lands constituted an insignificant fraction of the country’s cultivated territory.

p An important role in the exploitation of the peasants was played by the money-lenders whose activities served to hold back the development of Chinese agriculture. The emergence of commodity-money relations as a permanent feature of village life, while not giving rise to capitalist relations of production because of the existing wide-scale village crafts and the prevalence of natural economy in rural areas, paved the way for the practice of widescale money-lending. Capitalist production relations were also slow to develop in the towns. The Ch’ing (Manchu) monarchy merely introduced strict regimentation into rural life but on the other hand there were important changes in the towns to restrict the activities of the merchants and urban craftsmen who strongly resisted Manchurian rule. Apart from introducing extremely strict regimentation (which of itself was not enough to lead to a decline in urban development, as illustrated by the history of Japan under the Tokugawas) the Manchurian nobles drastically cut down their economic and political independence, thus holding back the development of mining and other industries. Although the political stability that prevailed during the reign of the energetic ruler, the Emperor K’ang-hsi (1662-1722), gave rise to a certain advance in crafts and trade (for example the textile and china industries), all such advances were made in spite of the constant restrictions, heavy taxation, compulsory deliveries and competition from state-owned enterprises. The guild organisations were incorporated into the state apparatus and soon carried out nothing but fiscal and police functions.

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p Trade was in an even sorrier plight, for apart from increased taxation there were now the added obstacles of competition from state trading organisations and monopolies (including that of foreign trade), internal tariffs, etc.

p In these conditions money-lending also developed on a wide scale in urban life and commerce. The practices of the moneylenders and tax-farmers also served as a brake on economic development. Many towns degenerated into little more than military and administrative centres, where the residences of the Manchurian and Chinese nobles and the garrisons of the Manchurian troops were situated. The townspeople who depended on crafts and trade for their livelihood were now pushed into the background, since strict government control had been introduced, a phenomenon which could in the main be explained by the fact that the majority of them were Chinese, who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries under the rule of the Ch’ing dynasty were regarded as second-class citizens. The Manchu monarchs strove to turn the numerically weak Manchurian population into a separate military-cum-administrative caste to provide the main bulwark of support for their power, making Manchuria the most privileged area of the country to which Chinese were not even given right of entry. Contact between the Manchurians and the Chinese was discouraged as far as possible, while strong attempts at assimilation were made. This campaign was however doomed to failure from the outset, since the Chinese were much more numerous and culturally advanced than the Manchurians; it served as a brake on economic advance.

p The whole system of state administration was channelled to the interests of the Ch’ing emperor, the Manchurian nobility and the army. The main bastion of Ch’ing support at the end of the seventeenth and during the first half of the eighteenth century was the Manchurian army, the so-called Eight Banners, which were garrisoned in the empire’s main towns and along its borders. The officers and soldiers of this army were allotted plots of state land which could not be alienated. This led to entrenchment of the economic differences between the Chinese and the Manchurians: the latter were granted land in return for service while land belonging to the Chinese was privately owned. In this situation the gradual merging of the two groups found expression (as far as agriculture was concerned) in the gradual transfer of the inalienable or “banner”’ lands into the hands of the Chinese nobles and powerful landowners. Meanwhile more and more Chinese and Mongols were being taken into the Manchurian army. Apart from the "Eight Banners”, provincial "Green Banners" consisting of Chinese soldiers also came into being, although they were undisciplined and ineffective.

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p Relying for rheir main support on the Manchurian army, which, although its interests had little in common with the interests of the majority of the Chinese population, was the only effective armed force at the time, the Manchurian emperors restored the former Chinese state apparatus reserving all the high posts for the highly exclusive Manchurian minority, leaving the Chinese no room for advancement. This whole system was presided over by the Emperor, who enjoyed unlimited power. Under him was a State Council and a State Chancellery (staffed in the main by Manchurians) and six ministerial departments (for ceremonies, finance, ranks, social administration, justice and military affairs), while the central organ of state control operated on a separate basis. In the provinces the Emperor was represented by governors and the various ministries by inspectors.

p What was formally a centralised system, in practice was far from being so, mainly because of the poor communications within the country. The provincial governors ruled like independent petty princes while the administrative officials were engaged in the main in various types of extortion. The latter were all taken from the ranks of the nobility and the promotion in the administrative hierarchy depended on a complicated system of examinations.

p The ideological atmosphere of the eighteenth century and the training received by administrative officials came to be permeated more and more with the spirit of Confucianism. This teaching usually came to the fore during periods when the feudal bureaucracy was in the ascendant, when the popular masses were subjected to wide-scale exploitation by the state. Confucianism in the form which had been adopted after the Chu Hsi reforms was made the official state ideology. Propagating submissive obedience to superiors as the supreme ethical principle, this teaching was once again to prove most acceptable to China’s feudal rulers. The Confucian conceptions of the immutability of society and the desirability of submission pervade the official literature of the period, the education system and state policies. At that time all opposition currents without exception—whether directly or indirectly—were critical of Confucian dogma. A bitter struggle was waged in the spheres of literature and scholarship, in which the Manchurians and their supporters were to gain the upper hand much later than was the case in the military struggle, and indeed were never to prove completely successful. Progressive thinkers of that time, despite the great variety of their philosophical ideas, all protested in one way or another against Manchurian oppression of the Chinese and the economic and political oppression to which the popular masses were subjected. As a result their strictly philosophical ideas are of interest as representing an example of the 341 gradual advance of progressive ideas in mediaeval Chinese philosophy.

p The reign of K’ang-hsi saw the final consolidation of the Ch’ing Empire and of its social, economic and cultural patterns. A streamlining of the taxation system and as a result a temporary curtailment of the number of illegal requisitions and a gradual decline in internal wars gave rise to a certain economic recovery and growth in agricultural output, together with a revival of internal trade and urban crafts. Although these processes took place against a background of strict regimentation and harsh exploitation, nevertheless by the end of the seventeenth century a marked improvement in the country’s position was to be observed. This was accompanied by financial recovery, replenishment of the state treasury, urban expansion and cultural progress.

p During the latter half of the seventeenth century increased contacts with Europe were established and various European inventions were adopted, particularly in the sphere of armaments and navigation, which were to prove important in connection with the consolidation of Manchurian power in China. The same end was pursued in the wide campaign for the Manchurian nobility to acquaint itself with Chinese culture, which during K’ang-hsi’s reign even became part of official policy. The cultural advance achieved by China’s conquerors (despite the ban on their mixing with the Chinese) was designed not only to obstruct Manchurian cultural acceptance of the Chinese but also, in the opinion of the emperor, to ensure that none of the higher echelons of the state apparatus were staffed with educated Chinese officials. The dominant position of the Manchurians for which K’ang-hsi wished to provide an “intellectual” foundation gave added weight to their privileged position in the courts, where for identical crimes stricter punishments were meted out to Chinese offenders. Side by side with this campaign a policy of “Manchurianising” the Chinese was pursued. Thus, among other things, the Chinese were forced to wear pig-tails like the Manchurians.

p Increased political and economic stability furthered the growth of foreign trade and the expansion of overseas contacts, which in turn determined the opportunities for pursuing aggressive foreign policy that were now open to the feudal Ch’ing Empire. Foreign trade routes led both south through Canton, and north through Mongolia. In the south trade was carried on with Arab, Indian and West European merchants, while in the north there was trade with Russian merchants and state enterprises. Russia exported glass, cloth and fur and imported Chinese tea, cane-sugar, china, etc. Trade was carried on by itinerant caravans since there was no permanent Russian representative in China. In the south, on the other hand, the Portuguese (in Macao), the English (in 342 Canton), the French (in Ningpo) and the Dutch were already firmly established. Obviating any form of control, merchants from these countries traded with the Chinese hand in glove with missionaries. In an effort to stop the West Europeans interfering in any way in the internal affairs of state, the government forbade them to trade with anyone but representatives of the company that enjoyed the official trade monopoly, “Co-hong”.

p This policy pursued by the imperial government hindered the expansion of diplomatic and cultural contacts and made normal diplomatic relations impossible. Dutch, Portuguese and other embassies were obliged to leave the country empty-handed. This policy of isolation was also to the serious detriment of RussoChinese relations, although on the whole relations between these two large countries developed somewhat differently. After their failure to establish diplomatic relations, for some time the West European powers abandoned their attempts to come to terms with the emperors. Russian missions led by Boikov (1654-1656) and Perfilyev (1658) also returned empty-handed. However Spafary’s embassy (1675-1677) which ended in an audience with the Emperor, although not leading to the conclusion of any specific agreement, to a certain extent paved the way for future developments in this direction, since both sides expressed their interest in normalising relations.

p By this period the local population of South and Eastern Siberia had recognised Russia’s supremacy, but as early as in the second half of the seventeenth century this was threatened by aggressive aspirations on the part of the Ch’ing dynasty, particularly in regard to the regions bordering on the privileged part of the Empire, namely Manchuria. In 1684 a large contingent of Manchurian forces complete with artillery and West European military experts crossed the Empire’s northern border and moved north to the river Amur where they besieged the Cossack fortress at Albazin, the centre of the Russian settlements on the Amur. Frequent assaults were repulsed by the small garrison and on one occasion when the town was actually destroyed the inhabitants quickly rebuilt it. In 1686 the Manchurian forces built a rampart round the town, but still were unable to capture it. While these hostilities were in progress yet another Russian embassy, led this time by Golovin, came to China to start a further series of trade negotiations despite all the obstacles placed in its path by the Manchus. The failure of the special crack troops to rout the Cossack garrison at Albazin obliged the Emperor to adopt a more realistic approach to the proposals of his northern neighbour and appoint representatives to start negotiations with Golovin. These negotiations took place in an extremely tense atmosphere since while they were in progress the Emperor had a 15,000-strong army 343 concentrated outside Nerchinsk, but nevertheless by August 27, 1689, the treaty of Nerchinsk between Russia and China had been signed, which dealt not only with territorial questions and the treatment of deserters on both sides of the border but also with trade relations between the two countries. This Russo-Chinese treaty made possible a normalisation of relations between the two powers.

p Russia accepted this agreement since normal relations with her immediate neighbour were indispensable. The need to establish trade and diplomatic relations with Russia was recognised by the Ch’ing emperors in subsequent years as well: while cutting China off as much as possible from contact with Western Europe, trading, negotiations and an exchange of ambassadors with Moscow continued. Further two treaties were signed (at Burinsk and Kyakhta in 1727 and 1728) which clarified frontier disputes in a number of places that had not been touched on in the Nerchinsk treaty and laid down rules for trading procedure and diplomatic exchange. The first permanent, though only semi-official, Russian legation was to appear in Peking at this time—a religious mission which also carried out diplomatic and trading functions. Its staff made important contributions to the study of China and to the development of Russo-Chinese relations. Based on principles of geographical proximity and mutual advantage, trade between the two countries continued to expand until the mid-eighteenth century.

p In order to further their expansionist ambitions, the Manchurian and Chinese nobles now turned their attention westwards. In 1691 the Mongolian princes of the Khalkha tribes recognised Chinese sovereignty. In 1715 Manchurian troops attacked the OiratJungar Khanate (in the modern province of Sinkiang). This unleashed a grim struggle which was to last till the 1750s and in the course of which the Ch’ing troops ousted the Jungars from Tibet and subjected this province to their control as well, after which a Chinese garrison was set up in the capital of Lhasa. These wars marked the beginning of a whole chain of expeditions of conquest. Whereas the wars of the late 17th and early 18th century (during the reign of K’ang-hsi) did not serve to undermine the feudal empire, their sequel under Emperor Yung Cheng (1723-1735) and in particular Ch’ien Lung (1736-1796) together with senseless extravagance in construction projects and court ceremony, curtailment of foreign trade and intensified reaction in social administration, exacerbated internal contradictions and gave rise to much unrest. The first signs of weakness in the military-feudal machinery of the Ch’ing state were to appear at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In the opening years of his reign Yung Cheng purchased the mortgaged lands formerly 344 owned by the officers and soldiers of the Manchurian "Eight Banners" Army and then distributed them among Manchurian officers and soldiers in return for services rendered. This served to consolidate the army to some extent, since the extension of rights accorded to the military council enhanced the position of the military leaders in the state administrative network. At that period the drive to intensify the centralisation of the Empire led to the banishment of European Jesuit missionaries and restrictions on the activities of European traders. Yung Cheng’s policy was pursued by his successor Ch’ien Lung, during whose reign expansionist foreign policy was still more marked than before and reaction became still more deeply entrenched. This in turn gave rise to discontent among the Chinese peasants who had to bear the burden of these wars, and to resistance on the part of the nonChinese peoples who had recently been incorporated into the Empire and of those whose traditional autonomy had been rudely abolished. The Manchurian assimilation drives were accompanied by heavier taxation.

p The wars against the Oirat-Jungar Khanate were waged even more fiercely in Ch’ien Lung’s reign. Openly bent on a war of extermination, the Ch’ing troops succeeded by 1757 in capturing Jungaria, which led a large part of the population to seek refuge in Central Asia. Chinese and Manchurians from the central part of the Empire were resettled in Sinkiang so as to strengthen Ch’ing control over the area inhabited by a foreign people hostile to the central government. Ten years after this victory in the west, the Burmese kingdom of Ava was attacked (1766, and again in 1769-1770) but this expedition ended in a defeat for the Ch’ing armies as did the subsequent campaign against Vietnam (1788-1790). By the second half of the eighteenth century the military might of the Ch’ing Empire had been seriously undermined. Forty years were required before the nomad khanates were finally overcome and wars with the developed feudal states of Indochina resulted in rapid defeats for the Empire. Finally Ch’ien Lung decided to attack his weak neighbour Nepal (1792) which was then embroiled in a war with Tibet. The strong resistance put up by this small mountainous country was broken and Nepal became a vassal of China.

p The costly wars waged by Ch’ien Lung extended the frontiers of the Empire to include sparsely populated, arid and mountainous regions which brought little benefit to China’s economy. The construction of extravagant palaces also absorbed a large part of state funds. The peasants who had been drained by requisitions and army recruitment and the non-Chinese peoples (who occupied more than half the Empire) who were subjected to still heavier taxation and stricter assimilation drives by the Ch’ing 345 emperors than by their predecessors found themselves in an extremely difficult position. The impoverished peasantry was obliged to sell its small private plots to the big and lesser landowners who soon came to own between 50 and 60 per cent of the land. More often than not the tenant farmers bound to their masters’ land were not in a position to pay any rent and productivity in agriculture showed no signs of improvement. An attempt on the part of the state to check this growing impoverishment of the main body of the tax-payers (a decree was proclaimed in 1786 to the effect that those plots purchased from the impoverished peasants be returned) did little to improve the situation. Landowners and money-lenders also proceeded to buy up the plots of the impoverished peasants in areas with non-Chinese populations where particularly cruel methods were employed. The local lords or in some places even clan hierarchies were replaced by Manchurian officials of the central government who held the local inhabitants in great contempt and made no attempt to understand their customs and traditions.

p The situation was less serious in the towns and among the urban traders and craftsmen. The enormous Empire complete with its army, administrative apparatus and unified legal system had soon come to provide a stable home market. Trade and industry expanded in the towns which grew considerably. The ban on free trade with the Europeans which had been introduced in 1757 and applied to the whole of the Empire except Macao, meant that the home market was exclusively in the hands of Chinese merchants and also led to a considerable restriction of foreign trade. Although hampered by the strict control of the feudal state apparatus, private manufacturers employing wage labour gradually appeared, trade expanded and commodity-money relations penetrated all spheres of rural production and spread to the new subject territories as well as those areas inhabited by non-Chinese peoples where the policy of mass assimilation provided ample opportunities for the growth of Chinese trade and usury. Elements of the capitalist mode of production started to appear in the towns but the feudal state was by no means weak as yet and the whole of Chinese society was still modelled on exclusively feudal patterns.

p In the complex, contradictory conditions obtaining in the seventeenth century, Chinese art and culture were to exhibit a certain artificial intricacy and pretentiousness which reflected the attempts of the Manchurian ruling clique, which had made no new contribution to Chinese cultural traditions, to set itself apart and underline its distinctive culture as a ruling class. In the eighteenth century science was notable for compilation on a large scale; the literature of the period was notable above all for short 346 stories in the vernacular and tales of ghosts and marvels. A predilection for stylish refinement was to be observed although certain authors at this time were producing realistic works as well. In the fine arts and architecture a decorative style with abundant ornament and intricate composition prevailed. Little cultural advance was achieved within the confines of this “closed” country.

p The critical situation in the rural areas and among the nonChinese peoples made much less impact on the towns which were subjected to permanent surveillance from the centralised state apparatus, and this factor was to determine the nature of the class struggle in China in the eighteenth century. This stiuggle consisted in the main of isolated though frequent uprisings among the non-Chinese peoples and an organised campaign of the Chinese peasants led by secret peasant organisations, in which landowning and urban elements were to play no significant role. The centralisation of the class of landowners that had been established by this time and the relative stability in the towns meant that the main masses of the discontented peasantry relied on their own resources and employed their own forms of organisation and tactics in their struggle.

p Armed uprisings were the main expressions of the struggle waged by the non-Chinese peoples against the all-pervading assimilation campaign decreed by the emperors. The most important of these included the Miao and Yao uprisings of 1735, 1739-1740, 1795-1799, the uprisings of the non-Chinese peoples in Szechwan in 1772, of the Dungans and Salars in 1783, of the Moslems in Kansu in the same year and of the native population in Sinkiang in 1826-1827.

p The peasant secret societies were to play an active role later during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, when conditions had become particularly burdensome for the peasants. Traditional religious societies—such as the White Lotus (Pai-lien chiao)—started to reappear, and new ones sprang up such as the Association of Elder Brothers and the Triad. These secret societies, apart from political aims (in this case the overthrow of the Ch’ing and the restoration of the Ming dynasty), set themselves the goal of moral self-perfection and organised help for the needy among their members, etc. The discipline and conspiratorial tactics of these societies displayed a high level of organisation. The most influential among them was Triad, centred mainly in the southern coastal areas and supported by the merchant class.

p Apart from their regular everyday activities these secret societies organised a number of major uprisings: in Taiwan (1786-1788) under the leadership of the Triad and in the Shantung and Honan provinces during the seventies and eighties under the leadership of the White Lotus. A mass uprising was instigated by the 347 White Lotus society in 1796 in the central and western regions of the country, where opposition to the Manchurians and the feudal landowners was particularly strong. Attempts by the Manchurian army to quell the uprising failed and it was the forces of the Chinese lesser and medium landowners which finally succeeded in putting down the insurgents in 1805. However, in 1813 one of the branches of the White Lotus society again organised a popular revolt. At the same time guerilla activities spread in the coastal regions of the southern part of the Empire.

At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century China was hit by a severe agrarian crisis, made still more acute by uprisings among the non-Chinese peoples and the struggle of the peasant secret societies. This situation served to undermine the central power and the rulers of individual provinces became virtually independent. Numerous large-scale wars unleashed during the second half of the eighteenth century all ended in defeat. Diplomatic and commercial activity on the part of the West European powers expanded considerably in these conditions and more resolute efforts were made to find openings in the Chinese market for European and American wares. The most active of the powers concerned was England, which by that time was the most advanced industrial and trading nation among the European powers. However, her special missions with this end in view (1792-1793 and 1816) made no headway. Meanwhile the expansion of both English and American trade in China, in particular the opium trade, made imperative the consolidation of these powers’ positions in the country at the expense of Chinese sovereignty. The appetites of the colonialists were growing apace but a "way into" China was indispensable for their activities and this the Ch’ing rulers made every effort to deny them.

The Crisis in the Ottoman Empire

p At the beginning of the seventeenth century the Ottoman Empire still represented a formidable power and continued to pursue its aggressive policy of aggrandisement both in Europe and the Middle East. However, defeats, first at the hands of the Austrians and the Hungarians in 1664, and then of a European coalition (consisting of Austria, Russia, Venetia and Poland) deprived the Empire of a considerable number of its subject territories, by the treaties of Karlowitz and Constantinople. In the eighteenth century the Ottoman Empire was obliged to adopt defensive tactics and in the course of that century was forced to make more and more territorial and economic concessions.

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p This decline in its military might was bound up with the crisis and disintegration in the Empire’s system of military vassalage and among the janissaries. The fief-holders gradually became powerful landowners and lost interest in participation with their cavalry in the imperial wars. The spread of commodity-money relations, the development of trading with foreign merchants who brought with them luxury goods from all corners of the globe to supply the Sultan’s court and the upper echelons of the feudal hierarchy, were all made possible through sale of the fruits of the peasants’ and craftsmen’s labours. This in its turn led to intensified exploitation of the peasants and a proliferation of requisitions and taxes. As a result, agriculture soon began to decline. The lot of the subject peoples of the Empire was particularly hard, since they were completely at the mercy of the Turkish feudal lords and administrative officials, and were exposed to the caprices and impositions of both their own and the Turkish nobles. The Christian peoples inhabiting the Balkans were oppressed as religious and national minorities and were also subjected to feudal patterns of economic exploitation.

p East-West trade through the agency of middlemen was to give rise to the emergence of an influential comprador bourgeoisie in the large coastal towns of the Empire, which consisted in the main of Greeks and Armenians. Manufactories also sprang up in the ports. However, the completely arbitrary rule of the Sultan, which meant that there was no security either for the most powerful state officials or the emergent bourgeoisie coupled with the impoverishment of the mass of the peasantry, served to hold back the consolidation of capitalist economic patterns.

p In the eighteenth century the European states succeeded in turning their former privileges—capitulations, granted them as the Sultan might think fit when he started to take an interest in the development of foreign trade—into reliable guarantees of exterritorial rights for their merchants and their right to expand trade. European wares soon threatened the livelihood of local craftsmen and the existence of Turkish manufactories. The compradors who made theif profits as trading intermediaries had a vested interest in promoting the infiltration of foreign capital. The janissaries also started to compete with the petty traders and craftsmen. These professional foot soldiers had earlier been exclusively tributary sons of Christians who were converted to Islam and then brought up from an early age as fanatical believers loyal to the Sultan. They were not allowed to marry and have their own families and lived according to a strict garrison regime, receiving large salaries and being exempted from all taxation. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, the janissaries lost interest in their military role. Many of them set up 349 house and started to engage in trade and crafts while continuing not to pay taxes. The growth of this particular social category resulted to a large extent from the appearance of a second generation. Selling janissary patents soon became an accepted practice. Meanwhile the janissary corps gradually lost its military aura and was soon little more than a praetorian guard, presenting a danger to the Sultan himself. Mutiny among the janissaries was now an increasingly common occurrence, as they came to demand and in many cases procure the dismissal of unpopular commanders.

p The intensification of feudal exploitation and the growing taxes that served to undermine the feudal economic system, which could not be substituted by capitalist patterns because of the specific conditions obtaining in Turkey, led to a concerted movement of protest among the popular masses. In 1730 an uprising of the urban masses broke out in the capital: it was led by a former sailor Patron-Khalil and it took the authorities several weeks to suppress it. Meanwhile spontaneous peasant revolts also multiplied. The first seeds of a national liberation struggle were now to be discerned among the oppressed peoples, particularly those of the Balkan peninsula. These anti-feudal and liberation movements were also directed against the upper hierarchy of the Moslem clergy, which not only sanctified the rule of the Sultan and his nobles but also represented one of the Empire’s major groups of landowners, owning enormous estates which were not subject to any taxation. These factors added a religious sectarian element to the struggle as well.

p The economic and political decline of the Sublime Porte left the way open for the separatist aspirations of the more powerful nobles and local governors which accelerated the downfall of the Empire still further. The weaker the Empire became, the easier it was for the European powers to promote their economic penetration and seize various Ottoman territories.

p After the Russo-Turkish wars of the eighteenth century which culminated in that of 1768-1774, Russia secured access to the Black Sea from which Turkish coastal possessions had long barred her. The Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji restored to Russia the lands situated between the Dnieper and the Bug, and made the Crimea an independent state, later to be annexed by Russia. Russian trading vessels were granted the freedom to sail the Black Sea and through the Bosporus. Meanwhile the Tsars, with the firm backing of the gentry and merchant class, dreamt of extensive conquests and of establishing their control over the Bosporus and even Constantinople itself. These aspirations were to clash with the interests of other European powers, above all England and France, who themselves counted on subjugating the 350 whole of the multinational Ottoman Empire and engaged in fierce rivalry as they gradually penetrated its various parts. The conflicting interests and rivalry between the European powers within this Empire, side by side with its strategic importance in the context of long-term plans for expansion in Asia and Africa gave rise to a complex series of problems which came to be referred to as the "Eastern Question".

The more far-sighted representatives of the feudal hierarchy tried to consolidate the Empire by means of military and administrative reforms. However, reforms of this nature tentatively introduced by Sultan Selim III (1789-1807) and the talented administrator and military commander Bairakdar Pasha were quite ineffective.