IN ASIA
New Methods in Colonial Policy
p By the second half of the nineteenth century the consequences of the industrial revolution in England and industrial development in the other countries of Europe and in North America started to make themselves felt in Asia and Africa.
p The straightforward plunder of the period of primitive accumulation gave way to the exploitation of the colonial and dependent countries as markets for manufactures and sources of raw materials, the need for which was being felt more and more acutely by the capitalist countries for their developing industry. By this time the whole world was caught up in the tentacles of capitalism as the world market gradually started to take shape.
p The colonial powers strove to consolidate and extend their direct control over the colonial territories they had conquered. Such control was established and new territories seized amid fierce economic and military conflict.
In those countries which were already colonial possessions of the European powers, the foreign rulers possessed a monopoly of political power which they exerted in a variety of ways. The industrial bourgeoisie of the mother countries now started to use new methods to extend its exploitation of these colonies through the colonial administration of its own creation. England, who by this time, with good reason, laid claim to being the workshop of the world and possessed the most powerful fleet among the colonial powers, was the first country to employ these new methods on a really wide scale. In her colonial possessions such as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, where climatic conditions were especially attractive for Europeans and the local population had been almost wiped out or driven off the fertile tracts of land, wide-scale settlement was encouraged. Large cereal farms were 439 set up, and also sheep farms which were to supply wool to European industry. Various methods were employed to encourage agricultural labourers to emigrate to these countries as well, so that the capitalist farmers installed there would have an ample source of labour at hand.
The Enslavement of India
p Through its instrument, the East India Company, which although deprived of its trade monopoly since 1813 still retained its importance as an organ of colonial administration, Britain gradually established her control over the whole of the vast subcontinent.
p The small number of princedoms and those rajahs and sultans who were still independent and tried to resist the domination of the Company were subjected to military pressure. Even the most powerful among them were unable to put up effective resistance to the Company, which by that time had firmly entrenched its positions, controlled vast territories and was well equipped with modern weapons. The peoples of India did not renounce their uneven struggle against the colonialists but as yet there existed no class capable of supplying the necessary leadership and organisation.
p The majority of the rajahs, nabobs and sultans contented themselves with the fact that they were permitted to pursue their feudal exploitation of the local population in their “self-governing” princedoms. On the territories administered by the British the landowning nobles were soon to become the allies and loyal supporters of the foreign rulers.
p Wherever the British came across peoples who attempted to defend their independence, they resorted to force quite ruthlessly. In 1817, after unleashing a war against the Maratha princedoms the Company annexed the domain of the peshwa Baji Rao who tried to resist them and pensioned him off. British proteges were installed on the thrones of the Maratha princedoms of Gwalior and Nagpur. Other Maratha princedoms whose territories were carved off by the British turned into typical “self-governing” princedoms, recognising the sovereignty of the Company and obediently carrying out the instructions of the British Resident installed at the court of the local ruler.
p In the Punjab, the Sikhs remained faithful to their freedomloving traditions and staunchly defended their independence. The talented statesman and commander of noble descent Ranjit Singh (1780-1839) succeeded in extending his rule to other neighbouring sirdars, consolidating the central power in his domains and 440 setting up an effective army. He did not deprive the peasants of their right to set up Sikh peasant communes or burden them with unduly heavy taxes and in this way assured himself of wide popular support. Ran jit Singh declared himself Maharajah and succeeded in extending the borders of the Sikh state to a considerable degree (Kashmir, Multan and Peshawar were annexed). The Sikh state was virtually the last independent princedom in India. The British were not willing to tolerate this situation after they had defeated Sind and already aspired to spreading their rule not only over the Punjab but also to neighbouring Afghanistan. The main attraction of Afghanistan lay in the fact that it opened the path for further penetration into Central Asia and the consolidation of British influence in Persia.
After the death of Ranjit Singh the Company exploited the discord which arose over the dynastic succession and rivalry amongst the Sikh nobles. At the cost of two wars (1845-1846 and 1848-1849) which took a heavy toll of lives, British troops succeeded in defeating the Sikhs. The Punjab was then annexed and became yet another province of British India. Strong garrisons were set up in the area consisting mainly of British forces. Meanwhile the British did not infringe on the privileges of the sirdars, who came over to their side, and at first found themselves obliged to curb the exploitation of the local peasantry and come to terms with the traditional peasant communes.
Consequences
of the New British Colonial Policy in India
p After completing their conquest of India, to which were also annexed Assam and other northern provinces of Burma (after the war of 1824), the British bourgeoisie started to introduce new methods of colonial policy on a wide scale. Cotton, jute and tea plantations were organised employing coolie labour. The sale of British goods in India and the export of raw materials demanded improved communications and transport facilities and more ports. In the mid-nineteenth century British entrepreneurs opened the first textile factories in Calcutta and Bombay where impoverished peasants and craftsmen supplied an ample source of cheap labour. Textile factories owned by Indians also made their appearance.
p The import of manufactured goods from Britain and the growth of manufacturing in India itself accelerated the impoverishment and ruin of local craftsmen. The peasant communes soon lost their former self-sufficiency as individual economic units. The drawing of peasant labour into industry and the expansion of the 441 local market for British goods also led to significant changes in policy with regard to land taxation.
p However the gradual stratification of the peasantry and the buying up of the land were only followed by the introduction of capitalist economic patterns on an insignificant scale. The crippling semi-feudal rents which condemned the peasants to poverty and ruin making of them little more than paupers and debt slaves still remained the predominant pattern in agriculture. High taxes levied by the colonialists for land, water supply, excise duties and indirect taxation all served to make the peasants’ position still worse. The discontent of the broad masses of the peasants, especially in those areas where colonial exploitation had long been practised, mounted rapidly. Opposition came not only from the peasants. It began to grow among certain sections of the nobility and various princes, now that Britain, after conquering the whole of India, regarded it as superfluous to maintain the “self-governing” princedoms, whose rulers used to demand from their peasants and craftsmen taxes in kind, amass vast wealth, and retain their magnificent palaces and harems.
During the governor-generalship of Lord Dalhousie, who devoted much of his energy to the creation of the necessary conditions for the introduction of these new types of exploitation, a number of princedoms (such as Oudh, Satara and Jhansi) were abolished as self-governing units and made British territory. The penetration of European capital in areas where feudal or semifeudal economies still dominated meant that wide sections of the population were exposed to ruin and poverty. Recurring famines claimed millions of victims.
The Penetration of European Capital
in the Middle East
By the middle of the nineteenth century increasing penetration of European capital in the as yet independent states of the East led to the impoverishment there too of local craftsmen due to the decline of independent foreign trade and a deterioration in the position of the working people. The European powers entrenched their positions in Turkey and Iran by means of onesided treaties or “capitulations” and ensured their subjects immunity to local law along with commercial and economic privileges. Meanwhile, local chieftains and the sultans or shahs together with the upper echelons of the bureaucracy and religious orders intensified their exploitation of the working people.
442The Ottoman Empire in the First Half
of the Nineteenth Century
p After the Ottoman Empire and Persia had lost a number of their vassal territories, and the liberation movement of the oppressed Slav peoples had become much stronger and separatist leanings were making themselves felt among the more powerful nobles and tribal chieftains, the more far-sighted among the representatives of the ruling classes came to appreciate the urgent need for various reforms. However, attempts to introduce from above reforms which were designed to ensure the consolidation of feudal monarchies and did not modify in any way the basic principles of feudal economic relations were ill-equipped to halt the growing domination of foreign powers and enable the Empire to surmount the deep-rooted crisis of the feudal economy.
p After several unsuccessful attempts to introduce military and administrative reforms on the part of Selim III and the talented statesman Bairakdar Pasha of Widdin, the Ottoman Empire gradually came to lose more and more of its subject territories as a result of either annexation by European powers or the liberation struggle of the non-Turkish peoples.
The struggle of the Greeks and the Slav peoples of the Balkan peninsula was used by the major European powers to promote their own interests in the area. There was fierce rivalry for spheres of influence between Russia, Britain, France and Austria. The Western powers were united in their efforts to halt Russia’s advance towards the Bosporus and the spread of her influence among the Serbs, Bulgarians and other Slav peoples, but vied among themselves for domination in the area. Egypt was to become the arena of fierce rivalry between Britain and France.
Egypt in 1820-1840
p Under the rule of Mohammed Ali, while remaining part of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt nevertheless embarked on an independent path of development. Relying on the support of the Egyptian people, who were opposed to Turkish rule, Mohammed Ali introduced a number of administrative and military reforms. He encouraged the development of industrial crops (first and foremost cotton), the building of factories and, in order to equip his army better, had munitions factories and ship-yards built. Britain and France tried to make the most of this weakening of Egypt’s dependence on Turkey and the growth of ties with foreign powers in their attempts to gain control over the country.
p Mohammed All’s policy, which promoted the interests of the Egyptian landowners, who had vested interests in commodity 443 production, and of the emergent bourgeoisie, was nevertheless of a progressive nature in that it played an important role in Egypt’s advance towards independence. Meanwhile, however, Mohammed Ali not only refused to support the liberation struggle of other oppressed peoples of the Ottoman Empire but even sent his troops to help the Turks crush the Arab liberation movement and carry out ruthless reprisals against the Greeks during the Greek War of Independence in 1824-1827. The motive inducing Mohammed Ali to pursue this policy was his hope of extending the frontiers of his own state and persuading the Turkish sultans to recognise Egypt’s independence.
p The defeat of Turkey in the war with Russia (1824-1829) and the liberation struggles of the Serbs and the Greeks severely weakened the Ottoman Empire. The Treaty of Adrianople bereft Turkey of territory in the Caucasus and in the Danube delta and in addition obliged her to recognise the independence of Serbia and Greece, and pay a large war indemnity.
The Ottoman army was defeated once again in the war with Mohammed Ali which began soon after the Treaty of Adrianople had been concluded. Egyptian troops occupied Syria, Palestine and Cilicia and marched into Anatolia, threatening the Sublime Porte. Russia was the only one of the great powers who agreed to come to the Sultan’s aid when he turned to the European powers with a plea for assistance. France, hoping thereby to enhance her own influence, supported Mohammed Ali. Britain meanwhile, fearing that French influence would be consolidated if the Egyptian ruler succeeded in defeating the Turks, decided to check his advance by means of Austro-Hungarian interference. When the Russian fleet sailed into the Bosporus and the Russian landing force disembarked near Istanbul, the Western powers in a state of great alarm succeeded in persuading Turkey and Egypt to sign a compromise agreement, by which Mohammed Ali recognised the Sultan’s nominal rule and withdrew his troops while the Sultan for his part agreed that the western parts of Syria, Palestine and Cilicia should be administered by Egypt. The Russian troops were recalled, but by the Treaty of UnkiarIskelessi Russia gave Turkey a promise of military aid in the event of a renewed outbreak of hostilities and the Sultan agreed to close the Dardanelles to all foreign ships except those of Russia in the event of war.
Attempts at Reform in Turkey
p The most far-sighted members of the Turkish nobility were aware of the urgency of reforms to save the tottering empire. Sultan Mahmud II did away with the feudal military system and 444 disbanded the janissary corps. After his death at a critical moment just as war with Mohammed All had broken out again following the latter’s demand for recognition of his hereditary rights to all the territories he ruled, a war in which the European powers were bound to intervene, his successor Abdul-Mejid I announced the introduction of a new series of reforms. The decree of 1839 was drawn up by the minister for foreign affairs, who had received his education in Europe, Mustafa Reshid and it promised that a law would be introduced guaranteeing security of life, property and honour to all the Sultan’s citizens irrespective of religion, just administration of taxes, abolition of the farming system and a reorganisation of army recruitment.
p The period which opened with this decree is known in Turkish history as the period of the tanzimat (transformations, reforms) and lasted approximately three decades. The reforms introduced in this period were unmistakably reforms from above which did little to threaten the interests of the ruling classes. The promised security of life, property and honour and the abolition of discrimination against non-Turkish peoples were to remain on paper. Influential sections of the nobility opposed the reforms and even those who supported them saw them as little more than a means for this multinational feudal empire to consolidate its power, and had no intention of encroaching upon the actual structure of feudal society.
p These limited reforms which were frequently amended and then reintroduced did nothing to check the struggle of the oppressed non-Turkish peoples or impede the further penetration by foreign powers of the country’s commerce and economy.
p At the Conference of London in 1840 the Western powers succeeded in making the question of passage through the Bosporus subject to international control, thus annulling the treaty of Unkiar-Iskelessi. The intensified economic penetration by the foreign powers and their wares made the crisis of this feudal empire still more acute, since the necessary conditions for the emergence of local capitalism were not promoted in any way.
p Meanwhile, the conflicts between the various European powers in their struggle for influence in the empire as a whole and various parts of it grew all the more acute. England and France had taken an active part in the Russo-Turkish War of 1853-1856, sending an expeditionary force to the Crimea. The Treaty of Paris in 1856 deprived Russia of many of her former territorial possessions and the right to keep a military fleet in the Black Sea and maintain military fortifications on its shores. The Conference of London decreed the European powers responsible for "the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire".
445However, although Turkey formally numbered among the victors of the Crimean War its dependence on its “allies”—France and Britain—which had grown during the period of the war continued to increase. The gradual weakening and decline of the empire determined its inevitable transformation into a semicolonial appendage of the developed European powers.
Attempts at Reform in Persia
p Reforms introduced by the Grand Vizier of Persia Emir Nasir al-Mulk were of a still more limited character. In Persia the section of the ruling class which was willing to carry through any reforms was even smaller than had been the case in Turkey. Here once again attempts to consolidate the central power and reorganise the administration network were conducted against a background of bitter rivalry between the European powers for controlling influence in Persia. Here the scene was dominated by rivalry between Russia and Britain.
p Quite apart from the increasing penetration of foreign wares which led to disastrous consequences for the economy as a whole, and in particular for the natural economy of the country’s rural areas, internal contradictions increased as a result of the policy of seizing the peasants’ land pursued by the nobles and the shah’s entourage and because of the growing separatist struggle between the khans of the larger tribes. The colonial powers, in particular Russia and Britain, exploited these tribal feuds to further their own ends.
p Thus it tan be seen that throughout Asia and North Africa the steady deterioration of the position of the masses was gradually leading to a situation where popular resistance was inevitable. This resistance was directed against cruel forms of feudal exploitation and the unlimited power of feudal hierarchies and bureaucracies, and last but not least, of foreign colonialists. The activity of the foreigners which served to aggravate the crisis in the feudal system was at the same time directed towards the preservation of certain feudal practices thus putting the brakes on the process of social advance required to bring about the final demise of feudal society.
p The popular movements which emerged at this period and which all adopted tactics of armed struggle had much in common since they were all born of similar developments taking place in all colonial and dependent countries. However, specific local conditions led to various differences within this common framework.
p In those countries which had been turned into colonies of European powers popular resistance was directed first and foremost 446 against the foreign invaders, in whom the masses saw their main exploiters and the principal source of their suffering and oppression. Sometimes in such situations sections of the nobility, which had not yet become the colonialists’ allies and loyal supporters, were also known to take part.
p In those countries which retained their formal independence (China, Persia and the Ottoman Empire) popular resistance was directed against the feudal nobility in power. On some occasions the leaders of such resistance movements, which were led by peasants and the urban poor, saw in the Europeans an element which they could turn to for assistance in their struggle against feudal patterns of exploitation.
Like most popular movements at this stage of historical development, before the emergence of classes capable of organising effective opposition to feudalism, these uprisings in Asia and Africa bore a religious or sectarian character reflecting the ageold aspirations of the peasantry to a “levelling” of social and property distinctions and an idealisation of the traditional commune. This was to be seen both in the T’ai-P’ing Rebellion in China and the Babist revolt in Persia.
The Indian Mutiny of 1857-1859
p The only organised group in India at that period was that of the Sepoy troops. The Indian soldiers and junior officers represented the anti-British attitudes of the peasant masses and other sections of the population with whom they had a good deal in common. In addition, in the mid-nineteenth century their own position was made much more difficult than before. The British authorities after completing their conquest of the country paid less heed to the needs and wishes of their Indian troops, whose salaries and pensions were duly cut down. These troops were also subjected to racial discrimination and humiliation and rough treatment at the hands of their arrogant British commanders. The Sepoys were at the same time most unwilling to be sent outside India on military campaigns that were being conducted by Britain in Afghanistan, China and Persia.
p The revolt of the Sepoys in Meerut marked the beginning of a large-scale national uprising which gave expression to the people’s bitter indignation at their treatment at the hands of their British masters. On May 10, 1857 the Sepoy detachments in Meerut, with support from the local inhabitants, took up arms and set free a number of soldiers who had been arrested for insubordination the day before. After slaying the British garrison officers the Sepoy regiments marched to their country’s ancient 447 capital, Delhi. En route large numbers of peasants flocked to join them. British forces succeeded in holding the Meerut garrison but they were besieged for a considerable time by insurgent peasants from the nearby villages.
p On reaching Delhi, helped by local Indian detachments and the local inhabitants, the insurgent army had little difficulty in capturing the city and wiping out the small British garrison there.
p The last representative of the Great Moguls who was little more than a powerless pawn in the pay of the British, the aged Bahadur Shah II, was proclaimed ruler of all India. In this restoration of the empire of the Great Moguls the insurgent soldiers and the people saw as it were a symbol of the abolition of foreign rule and their independence regained. After the capture of Delhi uprisings started to break out in various other towns: they spread along the Ganges and Jumna valleys in central India, where local rulers but recently deprived of their domains and privileges were to take an active part in the fighting. In Cawnpore an important role in the preparation and leadership of the uprising was played by the son of the last Maratha peshwa, Nana Sahib, whom Governor Dalhousie had deprived of his hereditary succession.
p On July 4th two Sepoy regiments collaborating with Nana Sahib captured the arsenal and prison in Cawnpore and released the prisoners. The remaining Sepoy detachments in the area and the local inhabitants immediately rallied to their support. Armed bands of peasants and craftsmen were set up and Nana Sahib declared himself peshwa, acknowledging the Great Mogul as his overlord. By the end of the month, the British officers besieged in the Cawnpore garrison were obliged to surrender. In the princedom of Jhansi, which had been annexed by Dalhousie, the Sepoys also revolted and part of them set out to join forces with the defenders of Delhi. In Oudh which had suffered a similar fate to Jhansi preparations for an uprising began immediately after annexation. One of the active leaders of this uprising was Ahmed Shah, a powerful landowner who had been stripped of his estates by the British.
p His fiery speeches, coloured with religious exhortations, exposed the base motives behind the colonialists’ policies and attracted large sections of the masses to the struggle. It was the peasants who first revolted in Oudh in the region of Lucknow. The Sepoy detachments which were sent out to crush this revolt went over to the peasants’ side. The Sepoy detachments stationed in Lucknow revolted at almost the same time and with the support of the townspeople succeeded in capturing the city. The Oudh dynasty which had been deposed by the British declared itself once more in power. Meanwhile, however, in the fortified 448 residence of the local governor and the surrounding area the British succeeded in holding out.
p The successes scored in this uprising, known as the Indian Mutiny, and the abolition of colonial rule in a number of areas between Delhi and Calcutta sowed panic among the British authorities. In the main centres of the revolt they only had limited forces at their disposal. Neither were the British very sure of their position in the south, or of the loyalty of various of their minions among the local nobility. Despite ruthless precautionary measures the British also feared the outbreak of a revolt in the colonial capital itself—Calcutta.
p However the weak points of the uprising were soon to come to the fore. The lack of any central organisation and clear objectives made the actions of the Sepoy insurgents far less effective than they might have been. With rare exceptions no real leaders were to emerge from the ranks of the peasants and craftsmen who had taken an active part in the struggle, although they fought in the battles against the British obediently following the local nobles, priests and mullahs then in power. Furthermore the nobles who actively opposed British rule were unable to come to an agreement between themselves and organise a united struggle.
p The alliance between the colonialists and local rulers in many areas was also to prove fatal for the future of the uprising, for by this time the British had amassed considerable experience in making use of national and religious strife and India’s lack of unity so as to further their own ends.
p In the Punjab, for example, the British succeeded with the support of the sirdars who had come over on to their side not only to crush local anti-colonial outbreaks but also to use the troops of the Sikh nobles to put down the mutiny elsewhere. The British were able to send a 40,000-strong army to crush the revolt at its heart and capture Delhi.
p This army laid siege to the ancient capital, which held out for four months, thanks to the heroic resistance of the insurgent troops and the townspeople. Sepoy regiments and Wahhabite units led by a Sepoy officer came to their help from other parts of the country. The popular masses played an important part in defending the city. A revolutionary council consisting of representatives from the various Sepoy regiments was set up and Commanderin-Chief elected. The Council also adopted a number of measures promoting the interests of the people and designed to maintain order and organisation in the besieged city. Salt taxes were abolished and rich merchants were obliged to pay heavy taxes. Hoarding of food supplies was made subject to serious punishment. The Council demanded that their Emperor Bahadur Shah II take steps to improve the conditions of the peasants and 449 wipe out corruption in the system of tax collection. However, differences between various factions of the nobility and its representatives on the Council and the popular masses soon came to the surface and threatened the city’s united stand. Many of the nobles were by this time reluctant to hold out any longer against the British and when in September 1857 the British received new reinforcements with siege artillery they were soon able to launch an assault on the city. After long battles the city finally fell and the British celebrated their victory with ruthless reprisals. Many of the inhabitants left Delhi in the wake of the remnants of the insurgent troops.
p Bahadur Shah II later surrendered to the British after he had been promised that his own life and those of his sons would be guaranteed. However, soon afterwards a British officer gave orders for the princes to be killed and later Bahadur Shah died in exile.
p After laying siege to Delhi with an army from the Punjab, the British high command proceeded to wipe out the centres of revolt in the Ganges valley with troops sent out from Calcutta. The British captured Allahabad and Benares and went on to take Cawnpore in July 1857 despite determined resistance by the local population. The remainder of Nana Sahib’s army continued to resist the British even after they had been obliged to withdraw from their original strongholds. In the autumn of that year, despite energetic efforts on the part of new ruler of Cawnpore installed by the British, Sepoy troops from Gwalior and some of the detachments, which had made their way that far after Delhi had fallen to the British, rallied to the support of Nana Sahib. Although popular resistance continued in this region, British troops were meanwhile sent into Oudh. In November 1857 the British succeeded in forcing their way through to Lucknow and relieving the beleaguered garrison and the British who had sought refuge there. However they failed to regain control of the city and withdrew to Cawnpore.
p Only after bringing in new reinforcements from Persia and diverting troops which were on their way to China from Singapore were the British able to put more effective pressure on Nana Sahib’s forces and cut off central India from Oudh. By the spring of 1858 a 70,000-strong army had been mustered for operations in this area. In March British troops closed in on Lucknow, the capital of Oudh.
p Meanwhile in Oudh conflict between the popular masses and the representatives of the nobility engaged in the campaign was increasingly disrupting the resistance movement. In January 1858 there were even armed skirmishes between some of the units under Ahmed Shah and those commanded by certain nobles. All 450 this served to weaken the insurgents’ resistance to the superbly equipped British army. On March 14th Lucknow fell and was to be the scene of brutal reprisals and plunder lasting for more than two weeks.
p Nevertheless Ahmed Shah succeeded in keeping a considerable part of his army intact. He did not abandon the struggle which after the capture of Lucknow continued mainly in the form of guerilla activities against the numerically superior British troops. In central India at this juncture a talented guerilla leader Tantia Topi gained prominence. The rani (Hindu queen) of Jhansi was to inspire the resistance fighters by her tremendous courage in battle. When the capital of Jhansi was captured by the British in April 1858 she managed to escape to safety. After joining Tantia Topi’s forces she later perished in an encounter with the colonialist troops.
p Guerilla activity continued, but the resistance fighters found themselves in a more and more difficult position. Gradually nobles who were loyal to the British started giving them more active support, and more and more of the nobles who had taken part in the revolt decided to go over to the side of the British. British manoeuvres served to further this development. The India Act of 1858 dissolved the East India Company, brought India under the direct control of the British Crown and guaranteed the immunity of the domains of the princes and nobles. In a royal proclamation Queen Victoria solemnly decreed that the rights, honour and dignity of native princes would be scrupulously observed. Many local princes actively assisted the British to crush the popular resistance. One of these princes succeeded in capturing Ahmed Shah and for the price of 50,000 rupees he was handed over to the British. Similar intrigues were involved in the capture and betrayal of Tantia Topi to the British.
p The British authorities made cruel reprisals against the guerilla detachments. However, at the same time the British were also obliged to take certain steps to mitigate the deep-rooted contradictions that abounded in the agrarian system. The law of 1859 which established fixed land rents served to curb the arbitrary practices of the landowners. It also recognised the tenant-farmers’ hereditary right to plots which they had been working for over 13 years.
This great popular rising, the Indian Mutiny, was finally defeated. There was as yet no class in India capable of providing a struggle against colonial rule with effective leadership. The nobility, a section of which had made a last attempt to throw off British rule, were now for all intents and purposes allied to the British. Neither did there exist in mid-nineteenth—century India the necessary conditions to ensure coordinated unity in 451 such a struggle throughout the country as a whole. However, the unsuccessful uprising of 1857-1859 was not an entirely wasted effort. It pointed to the great possibilities of mass resistance and provided a source of inspiration for Indian patriots. The experience gained by the peasant masses which had taken part in the Mutiny was to prove invaluable in subsequent stages of the popular resistance movement.
The Babist Revolt in Persia
p The causes of the popular uprisings in Persia in the middle of the nineteenth century were the same as those behind similar movements in other Asian countries. The European penetration of this still independent country served to increasingly undermine the feudal order.
p The arbitrary measures and feudal exploitation of local rulers brought the masses particularly cruel hardship at a period when traditional natural economies were collapsing. For this reason in Persia, as was also the case in China, the popular uprising was directed first and foremost against local landowners and their practices. This struggle also contained the inevitable religious sectarian elements. Religious features common to popular movements at a particular stage of historical development, were to assume specific prominence in Moslem countries, where the official state religion often provided the basis of civil and criminal law.
p The Babist uprisings were bound up with a sectarian movement, which first made its appearance at the beginning of the nineteenth century, that of the Shi’ite sect. The adherents of this sect believed in the imminent appearance of the Imam Mahdi who would usher in an era of justice on earth. Before the coming of this Messiah, the appearance of a messenger was expected who would announce the Messiah’s will and who would represent a Bab (or gate) through whom the people would be sent the renewed divine revelation.
p In 1844 one of the followers of this cult Mirza ’Ali Mohammed declared himself to be the Bab and started to propagate his teaching which represented a continuation of Shi’ite precepts. His pupils and followers came to be known as Babis. The Bab’s preaching to the effect that a kingdom of justice would be established on earth and his exposure of the injustice and oppression effected by the religious and temporal leaders evoked a keen response among the craftsmen, peasants and lower echelons of the religious hierarchy. At the outset the Bab even hoped to win over to his following the Shah and members of his entourage. However the authorities soon started to persecute the Babis and finally 452 captured and imprisoned the Bab himself. While in prison the Bab declared himself to be the Imam Mahdi. He maintained close contact with his followers and in his book entitled Bahain ( Revelation) attempted to systematise and provide religious and philosophical substantiation for his teaching.
p The Bab contended that there existed religious laws, enumerated in the books of the prophets, which corresponded to the needs of each era of human history. The Books of Moses, the Gospels and the Koran had each corresponded to the needs of a specific epoch. He went on to assert that by this time the Koran was already outdated and the time had come for men to adopt a new religion and new sacred writings, which the Bab was in fact offering in the form of his Bahain. According to the Bab’s teaching a reign of justice was to be established throughout the whole world but first of all it was to come into being in the five main provinces of Persia. All those who did not accept the Bab’s teaching and all foreigners would be banished from the land and their property confiscated and distributed among the Babis. In the realm of the Babis the principle of universal equality would be acclaimed and men and women would be accorded equal rights. Although the Bab’s teaching expressed the anti-feudal aspirations of the popular masses, it reflected still more prominently the interests of the merchant class to which the Bab himself belonged. It was no coincidence that alongside his promises to uphold inviolability of person, property and domicile, there was provision for commercial correspondence to be absolved from censorship, for the payment of debts to be made obligatory, for the recognition of interest on loans and the right of merchants to travel beyond the confines of the "Babist realm" to pursue their trading activities.
p Meanwhile the Bab’s numerous followers among the peasants and craftsmen read their own ideas on equality into his teaching. Many pupils of the Bab went further than their teacher in expressing the people’s cherished hopes. For example, the mullah Mohammed-Ali from Barfurush, himself of peasant stock, taught that in the realm of the Babis "all people now of high and important calling will be accorded low rank, while all those now of low rank will attain high rank”, and that there would be no taxes and obligatory labour services for the peasants.
p At a Babist gathering in 1848 in the village of Bedesht attended by more than 300 representatives from various regions, as a result of the considerable influence exerted by Mohammed-Ali from Barfurush and the woman-preacher Kurrat Ulyain these new ideas were officially adopted by the movement, and subsequently propagated by the various Babis after they had returned to their native districts.
453p The death of Mohammed Shah in the autumn of the same year was followed by the inevitable dispute over the succession and the redistribution of a number of important state offices. Many Babis considered this to be a propitious moment for embarking on an armed struggle. In the province of Mazanderan about 700 armed Babis from Barfurush encamped fifteen miles from the town and proceeded to build a fortress. Soon over two thousand peasants and craftsmen from various villages and towns had gathered there. Under the leadership of Mohammed-Ali they attempted to lay the foundations for the establishment of the "realm of justice”. All property was declared communal and all were obliged to work and eat according to communal principles.
p The insurgents were afforded considerable assistance by the peasants who supplied them with food, livestock and fodder. Attempts on the part of the local authorities to put down this nucleus of the "Babist realm" ended in failure: detachments of the Shah’s troops sent out from the capital were beaten back. This success in Mazanderan inspired the Babis in other areas to follow suit and preparations for an armed struggle were made in a number of towns.
p At the beginning of 1849 new units of government troops approached Sheikh-Tebersi, where they besieged the insurgents and cut off their supplies. Despite desperate shortages of food and ammunition, the Babis held out valiantly until May against the Shah’s 7,000-strong army. In May the remaining defenders of the city surrendered after being promised that their lives would be spared. However, they were all wiped out to a man with savage cruelty.
p The defeat of the Babis at Sheikh-Tebersi did not deter the Babis in other areas from continuing with their preparations for an armed uprising. At the beginning of 1850 an uprising broke out in Yazd, which the government troops soon succeeded in quelling. However, some of these Babis managed to escape the subsequent reprisals and led by Said Yahya made their way south from Yazd to Neyriz. Here, in June 1850, another revolt broke out which was widely supported by the local peasants. Once again the local authorities, armed as they were with artillery, soon succeeded in capturing Neyriz and subduing the insurgents. However, in answer to the cruel reprisals against the Babis, after a short interval, a new, more powerful wave of revolt started.
p In Zanjan (Persian Azerbaijan) the Babis succeeded in gaining many new followers, and by 1849 had acquired considerable influence in the towns. The arrest of one Babi in May 1850 sufficed to spark off an insurrection. Soon most of the town was in the hands of the Babis. Under the leadership of Mohammed-Ali 454 of Zanjan, the blacksmith Kazem and the baker Abdullah the Babis began to make preparations to withstand a siege. The first attack by the Shah’s forces was successfully repulsed. All the inhabitants, including women and youths, took part in the town’s defence.
p At the beginning of July 1850 the authorities decided to have the Bab executed, hoping thereby to prevent the uprising from spreading throughout the country. However, this measure did not achieve the desired results. The Babis in Zanjan put up staunch resistance until almost the end of 1850 and they were only defeated when a 30,000-strong army supported with artillery was sent out against them. No mercy was shown even to the children and the aged among the city’s defenders.
p Meanwhile before Zanjan surrendered another uprising broke out among the peasants of Neyriz and the surrounding district. Driven to desperation by hardship and exploitation, they left their villages for the mountains where they set up fortified strongholds. The peasants put up firm resistance to the onslaught of the government forces, employing guerilla tactics in order to capture guns, and even cannon.
p Finally the Shah’s forces succeeded in surrounding the insurgents’ hide-out, and with the help of the other mountain tribes succeeded in wiping out the Babis almost to a man. Particularly cruel reprisals followed. Prisoners were burnt alive, subjected to inhuman tortures and even shot from cannon.
p By the end of 1850, the authorities had succeeded in subduing all other centres of the revolt. Isolated outbreaks in the north continued as late as 1852 but they were all rapidly crushed.
p An unsuccessful attempt on the life of Shah Nasr ed-Din in August 1852 resulted in the execution of 28 Babis in the capital who were accused of conspiracy in this terrorist act. Throughout the whole of Persia followers of the Bab’s teaching were persecuted and sentenced to death. The defeat of the Babist uprisings showed that the anti-feudal movement had not yet progressed beyond the stage of isolated, mainly spontaneous uprisings of craftsmen, petty traders and peasants. Here, as in other parts of Asia, classes capable of leading and organising a united antifeudal movement had not yet emerged.
p Indeed, the religious and mystical teaching of the Bab, in which the peasants and urban poor among the movement’s followers attempted to incorporate their ideas of freedom and equality was ill-equipped to promote the unity of such a movement and coordinate all the various anti-feudal forces in the land. Later this teaching which was to abandon those ideas which alarmed the propertied classes was to degenerate into what came to be known as Bahaism. One of the Bab’s pupils who set out to 455 reform his master’s teaching, Baha’ullah, and his followers, the Baha’is, turned their back on the anti-feudal and democratic principles contained in the Bahain. Bahaism was thus ill-adapted to win the support of the masses and was to become little other than the ideology adopted by the merchant class in the service of foreign capital.
p The Babist uprisings not only alarmed the ruling classes but also convinced the more progressive sections among them of the urgent need for reform. The Grand Vizier Mirza Taki Khan ( Nasir al-Mulk) was to become the spokesman of this faction. Yet since the support for such reforms was even more limited than had been the case in Turkey, the efforts of Nasir al-Mulk (his struggle against the arbitrary methods employed by the khans, and his campaign to consolidate the central power and improve the organisation of the armed forces and introduce the first nuclei of secular education) were to prove short-lived. After crushing the Babis the reactionary Shah Nasr ed-Din dismissed and executed his Grand Vizier.
The penetration of Persia by the Western powers which involved fierce rivalries and met with no effective resistance soon reduced the country to semi-colonial status.
The T’ai-P’ing Rebellion
p Discontent with feudal exploitation in China against a background of an increasingly acute economic crisis exploded in numerous popular uprisings. Although the peasant disturbances which broke out in various parts of the empire were sometimes serious enough to cause the central authorities a great deal of trouble and to only be suppressed after a long and bitter struggle, they were in the main spontaneous, isolated outbreaks. These by now traditional peasant riots were frequently organised by secret societies and various religious sects.
p The outbreak of such movements reflected the aspirations of the masses to liberation from feudal oppression and the naive hope of the peasants that equality might be achieved and the ancient communes, idealised as belonging to a Golden Age, might be restored. At the same time the struggle took the form of opposition to the Manchurian Ch’ing dynasty, which the people saw as the main source of their suffering. These ideas were reflected in the teaching of Hung Hsiu-ch’uan (1814-1864), a village teacher of peasant stock who founded the sect known as the Society of the Heavenly Ruler in Kwangtung in South China.
p In this new teaching which Hung started to propagate in 1837 there were elements of Christianity, albeit in a somewhat unusual 456 interpretation. The ideals of equality and the creation of a "Heavenly Kingdom" on earth, the fight against evil and evildoers—interpreted in this case as representatives of the feudal authorities—and the liberation of the people were the main points of the teaching of Hung Hsiu-ch’uan, who claimed to be Christ’s younger brother.
p The consequences of the Opium Wars and the forced "opening up" of China, and the one-sided treaties China was obliged to sign with the European powers undermined this feudal society still further and brought still greater hardship to the people. The flood of European wares undermined local crafts and brought impoverishment to native craftsmen; the import of opium bled the country dry of silver and soon made copper money quite worthless. By the Treaty of Nanking China was obliged to pay enormous war indemnity. The Ch’ing dynasty started levying new taxes and requisitions, which greatly worsened the plight of the working people. Indeed, not only were peasants so impoverished that they were obliged to leave their holdings, and craftsmen ruined, unable to find a market for their wares, but the merchants and certain sections of the shensi class were also hard hit by the new taxes. This applied especially to the south, where there was a particularly large influx of foreign wares after five ports had been opened to foreign traders. Thus not only working people joined Hung Hsiu-ch’uan’s sect but merchants and shensi as well.
p One of the new members of this sect, the son of a coal miner who was to become an outstanding peasant leader Yang Hsiuch’ing, mustered a peasant force to fight against the local nobility. Soon he was to become one of the prominent leaders of the sect and his men were to provide the nucleus of a rebel army. In the mountains of the province of Kwangsi, which were difficult for government troops to penetrate and a long way from the large administrative centres thousands of followers of the Society of the Heavenly Ruler had gathered by the end of the 1840s. In 1850 they started an armed struggle against the Manchurian rulers in the name of "equality for the poor at the expense of the rich".
p The fanatical founder of the sect, who in ecstatic trances composed religious-cum-revolutionary hymns, in which were outlined the aims of the movement and the methods by which they were to be attained, appealed to all his followers to burn down their houses and property and, together with their families, join the ranks of the insurgents.
p The local authorities were powerless to crush the revolt. The arrival of troops from other provinces and the appointment of the Empire’s first minister to the post of commander-in-chief also 457 proved to no avail. On January 11, 1851, on Hung Hsiu-ch’uan’s birthday, the creation of a "Heavenly Kingdom of Great Prosperity" (T’ai-P’ing Tien-Kuo) was proclaimed with due pomp and ceremony. From that time on all the participants of the rapidly spreading movement were known as T’ai-P’ings (the Most Prosperous Ones). The head of the sect, Hung Hsiu-ch’uan adopted the title of Tien Wang (Heavenly King).
p In September 1851 the T’ai-P’ings captured the capital of Kwangsi province, Hunan. All powerful officials in the city were killed, and the city treasury and food supplies were confiscated and made the communal property of the T’ai-P’ings. During the six months the T’ai-P’ing army was in control of Hunan the first steps were taken to set up a "Heavenly Kingdom”. Hung Hsiuch’uan’s three closest councillors were accorded the title of Wang and set up a government. The leading role in the government was played by Yang Hsiu-ch’ing, the "Eastern Wang”; it was he who headed the government and acted as commander-in-chief of the T’ai-P’ing forces, which by the end of 1851 numbered over 50,000.
p After breaking their way through the lines of the government troops sent out to crush them and following a skilful stratagem devised by Yang Hsiu-ch’ing, in the spring of 1852 the T’ aiP’ing army set off on a victorious march northwards. During this march the army was joined by numerous groups of rebellious peasants, who had been fighting against their local landowners, and many inhabitants of the villages and towns they passed through.
p In December the army reached the river Yangtze. With arms seized from the enemy, including cannon, the T’ai-P’ing army soon succeeded in capturing the strongly fortified group of three towns known as Wuhan (Wuchang, Hankow and Hanyang), the largest political and economic centre on the Yangtze.
p After this resounding victory the popularity and influence of the T’ai-P’ings spread even more rapidly, and new recruits flocked to join their army by the thousand. The primary unit of the T’ai-P’ing army consisted of five men, four soldiers and their commander. Five of these groups formed a platoon, four platoons a company and five companies a regiment; the regiments in their turn constituted corps and armies. Strict discipline was enforced and a code of military regulations was drawn up. The rebel soldiers worked out their own tactics and a number of talented commanders were to emerge from their ranks who made effective use of the century-old traditions of Chinese military art.
p The wide support accorded this army by the people was a highly important factor ensuring its successes. The T’ai-P’ings used to send out their spokesmen in advance of the main army to explain 458 the aims of the insurgents and appeal to the people to work for the overthrow of the Ch’ing dynasty, to put an end to the backbreaking exploitation of the landowners and destroy cruel governors and administrative officials. In the regions occupied by T’ai-P’ing army the old order was done away with: state chancelleries were abolished, likewise debt records and tax registers. The property of the wealthy and food supplies captured in state warehouses were shared out on a communal basis. Luxury articles and valuable furniture were destroyed, pearls were trampled underfoot so as "to do away with everything that distinguished the poor from the rich".
p After the capture of Wuhan, the T’ai-P’ing army, which by this time numbered half a million set out down the Yangtze valley. An enormous fleet of junks loaded with food and ammunition supplies accompanied the army which was swelled by new volunteers all along its route and soon numbered a million men. In the spring of 1853 the T’ai-P’ings captured the ancient capital of South China, Nanking. Its name was changed to Taiching (Heavenly City) and it was made capital of the T’ai-P’ing state. Soon the T’ai-P’ings controlled a large part of South and Central China. The organisation of the new state was elaborated by the T’ai-P’ing leaders in a law entitled "System of Landownership of the Heavenly Dynasty”. This was an attempt to put into practice the naive Utopian dreams of the insurgents directed towards the abolition of oppression and exploitation and aimed at introducing universal equality. The Law proclaimed: "All land on this earth is to be tilled by the common labour of all. ... All inhabitants of this earth must enjoy all together an equal share of the great happiness bestowed on us by our Heavenly Father, the Lord God; fields are to be tilled by all of us, food should be taken together and clothes shared out equally, money spent by men in a community, so that there should be no inequality anywhere and so that all might be clothed and fed.” Individual landownership was abolished and land was to be divided up according to the number of mouths to be fed in each family. Women were accorded equal rights with men in the T’ai-P’ing state, and they also received landed plots of a similar size. The peasant commune formed the basic economic, military and political unit. One soldier was recruited from each family, while the commanders of military units also possessed civic authority over the area where their men were stationed.
p After the harvest, each commune, which consisted of twentyfive families, was obliged to hand over all their crop to the state granaries with the exception of the necessary amount needed to feed themselves. The T’ai-P’ings were forbidden by law to own any land or have any personal belongings. Attempts were made 459 to introduce these principles in the towns as well as in the villages. Craftsmen were to unite in groups plying the same craft, hand over all that they produced to the state warehouses and receive in exchange from the state the food allowances they and their families required.
p In practice it proved quite impossible to enforce this law. The military tasks of the T’ai-P’ings made it impossible to divide up the land and confiscate the estates of the surviving landowners. Meanwhile, however, the vast majority of tenant farmers ceased to pay rent for their holdings or to carry out any of the former labour services they had been obliged to perform for their former masters.
p A number of progressive measures were introduced in the area under T’ai-P’ing control, both in the spheres of education and medicine and with regard to the abolition of reactionary social practices and patterns of family relations.
p This revolutionary campaign of the peasantry dealt a heavy blow at the Ch’ing emperors. Government troops were unable to undermine the T’ai-P’ings’ hold on the regions which they had occupied. Meanwhile, the power of the Manchu Empire remained intact in the North, although as a result of the T’ai-P’ing successes a revival of the activities of the former secret societies took place in a number of districts and large towns both in the North and the South and this development was accompanied by the outbreak of armed uprisings and a spread of peasant guerilla activities. A fight to this end was organised by the secret society “Triad” to the south of the Yangtze, while in September 1853 an uprising broke out in Shanghai under the leadership of the secret "Society of Daggers”. This town was in the hands of the insurgents right up to February 1855, and attempts were made to establish contact with the "Heavenly Capital”. An armed peasant movement led by the secret society Nien-Tang gained a fairly wide following in the North. The national minorities in various parts of the country also rose up against the Ch’ing rulers.
p Had they joined forces with the T’ai-P’ing campaign, these popular movements might well have overthrown the Manchus. However the narrow-minded sectarianism of the T’ai-P’ings deterred them from allying with any other organisations which did not follow their teaching.
p After consolidating their hold over Nanking, the T’ai-P’ings failed to seize their opportunity and send troops north immediately to capture the capital and set up their own state. In many other centres which they had captured earlier (such as Wuhan) their control was far from firm. Indeed after Nanking their advance came to a virtual standstill. This gave the nobles and the landowners the chance to consolidate their positions and muster 460 forces to meet the T’ai-P’ing threat. The counter-revolutionary army mustered by the feudal nobles of the central provinces led by the powerful Hunan landowner Tseng Kuo-fan numbered approximately 50,000. The "Hunan braves”, as this army was called, fought against the T’ai-P’ing army with greater effect than the government troops.
p Not until May 1853 did some of the T’ai-P’ing corps eventually move north. After overcoming tenacious resistance on the part of the Manchu troops by October, they were approaching Tientsin. Although at first it looked as if the capital was in danger, the T’ai-P’ing army by this time found itself in a critical position. Exhausted by the long march, and unaccustomed to the rigorous climate of the North, they reached Tientsin, their ranks greatly depleted. By this time they were also cut off from their supply bases and the expected support from the peasants of the North was not forthcoming. T’ai-P’ing ideas which had gained such a large following in the South did not make the same impact in the North, where the southern dialect was hardly intelligible. Neither did the T’ai-P’ings make any attempt to join forces with the insurgents led by the secret societies.
p Government forces constantly harassed the T’ai-P’ing army from all sides inflicting heavy casualties. Reinforcements from Nanking, which Were not sent out until May 1854, failed to meet up with the other T’ai-P’ing forces and were defeated in Shantung. Finding themselves encircled, the T’ai-P’ing army fought bravely and to the last man in a desperate campaign lasting two whole years.
p Meanwhile an attempt to organise an expedition to the west and establish their rule in the remaining large centres also led to heavy losses. In the years 1853-1856 Wuhan was to change hands several times. The T’ai-P’ing army succeeded in driving back Tseng Kuo-fan’s "Hunan braves”, but Tseng continued to muster more and more men to his counter-revolutionary army and remained a serious threat to the T’ai-P’ing cause.
p By 1856 it seemed as if a stale-mate had been reached: the T’ai-P’ing uprising was no longer in a position to contemplate overthrowing the Ch’ing dynasty and conquer the whole country, while the monarchy could not hope to rout the T’ai-P’ing " Kingdom" which incorporated large territories inhabited by tens of millions. However, discord within the T’ai-P’ing movement itself played into the hands of the counter-revolutionary forces and the latter were also afforded assistance from foreign powers.
p During the first period of the peasant war the foreign powers waited to see which way the odds would fall. They reckoned that it would be possible to wrest from a weak Ch’ing dynasty new concessions in addition to those which had been gained already 461 by way of the original one-sided agreements. They attempted to establish contacts with the "Heavenly Kingdom" assuring the T’ai-P’ings of their support for the uprising against their feudal masters and turning to their own ends the T’ai-P’ing illusions to the effect that the Europeans were their "brothers in Christ".
p As early as 1854 the European powers were demanding unlimited trading rights from the Peking government and the admission of foreign ambassadors to the capital along with other concessions.
p However, it was only after the conclusion of the Crimean War that Britain and France found themselves in a position to exploit a trifling pretext to embark on open military intervention. The so-called Second Opium War had ended in a further serious defeat for the Manchus. The Tientsin treaties, signed not only with the actual enemies—Britain and France—but also with the United States, which had taken no part in the war, represented yet another step towards the enslavement of China by the colonial powers.
p The new treaties of 1858 gave Britain and France the right to trade in a number of additional ports, free passage down the Yangtze, and guaranteed their subjects the right to travel at will to any part of the country. China also agreed to a new curtailment of tariff charges and agreed to pay yet another war indemnity. Britain and France were also allowed to send their ambassadors to the capital. In the future all these privileges were also granted to all other foreign powers.
p In an effort to obtain still further concessions, Britain and France instigated yet another conflict by sending an expeditionary force to Peking. The Emperor and his courtiers fled in terror from the city. The European forces sacked the city in barbarous fashion and burnt down the Emperor’s summer residence with its famous palaces and its priceless art treasures from China and other Asian countries. The Emperor’s brother Hung opened the gates of the capital to the enemy. On October 24, 1860 the Peking convention was signed, which opened the port of Tientsin to foreign trade and granted a new series of privileges.
p After gaining the desired concessions the foreigners were by this time interested in putting down the T’ai-P’ing revolt. The trading rights recently accorded them and the permission to sail the length of the Yangtze could only be made use of if the Ch’ing monarchy was in control of the whole of Central China. By this time the Europeans had also come to realise that the T’ai-P’ing leaders intended to defend the immunity of their native land and showed no inclinations to grant fettering concessions to foreign powers. Moreover, the T’ai-P’ings no longer entertained illusions to the effect that the Europeans were their "brothers in Christ".
462p The European powers thus saw themselves obliged to play an active part in the drive to crush the T’ai-P’ing revolt. The forces organised by the British and the French equipped with the latest guns and artillery were to play no small part in the hostilities that followed.
p Meanwhile developments within the T’ai-P’ing state also contributed to the final defeat of the uprising.
p In the China of that period, where capitalist patterns of economy did not yet exist, a peasant movement lacking a progressive class to guide it was not equipped to usher in a bourgeois order. Still less were the T’ai-P’ing agrarian reforms adequate to enable the establishment of the Utopian state of universal prosperity dreamed of by the peasants. Inequality based on property was to appear within the ranks of the peasantry itself. As for the merchants and those landowners who had joined the uprising in the hope of overthrowing the Manchus, they gradually came to protest more and more strongly against the T’ai-P’ing law designed to introduce complete equality. Even the leaders of the revolt gradually began to depart from these egalitarian principles and develop narrow-minded bureaucratic attitudes. Class contradictions also made themselves felt in Hung Hsiuch’uan’s immediate entourage. Wei Chang-hou, descended from a line of landowners, organised a conspiracy against Yang Hsiuch’ing, defender of the peasants’ interests, who staunchly upheld the anti-feudal programme contained in the Land Law. Wei Chang-hou also succeeded in persuading the third Wang, Shih Ta-kai, to join the conspiracy and in September 1856 they made a surprise attack on the residence of Yang Hsiu-ch’ing. He, his family and thousands of his revolutionary supporters were slaughtered.
p Wei Chang-hou’s action against the veterans of the T’ai-P’ing uprising gave rise to bitter indignation in the army. In November he was relieved of his post and executed, but the struggle among the revolutionary leaders and factions in the movement continued to be rife. Shih Ta-kai left Nanking with a large part of the army and waged an independent campaign against the government troops. After the death of Yang Hsiu-ch’ing who had provided the T’ai-P’ings with such a talented and resolute commander-in-chief, a united command virtually ceased to exist. Military setbacks at the hands of the counter-revolutionary forces in the pay of the nobles and landowners became more and more frequent. By the end of 1856 the T’ai-P’ings had abandoned Wuchang and Hanyang.
p After Yang Hsiu-ch’ing’s murder the corruption of the T’ aiP’ing leaders proceeded at a much more rapid pace and a new landowning class of Wang princes emerged. While there had 463 464 been only four Wangs (when the T’ai-P’ing Tien-Kuo state was proclaimed) including Hung Hsiu-ch’uan himself, by this stage they numbered over 200. They no longer gave any concern to the welfare of the people, although many of them were of peasant stock. The Wangs amassed considerable wealth, reintroduced compulsory labour services and requisitions for the population of the "Heavenly Kingdom”. All these developments inevitably led to bitter disillusionment among the peasantry.
p However, the peasants’ struggle against the feudal order and its personification—Manchurian rule—had not come to an end. Another talented peasant leader was to come to the fore—the commander Li Tzu-ch’eng. The T’ai-P’ing state was indebted to him for its successful defence manoeuvres and a number of offensives in the final period of the fighting. In 1860 he succeeded in inflicting a defeat on the counter-revolutionary troops and saved Nanking. His detachments then marched to Shanghai but although managing to capture a number of other towns en route, Li Tzuch’eng failed to capture the city. In the period 1860-1862 Li Tzuch’eng’s troops scored a number of major victories but they were no longer in a position to save the T’ai-P’ing state.
p In 1862 foreign powers started to take an active part in the hostilities against the T’ai-P’ings. They regarded the creation of “volunteer” detachments of hired mercenaries as inadequate in the circumstances and started to employ their regular forces in the area, send the imperial detachments ample supplies and provide the Manchu government with modern weapons, ammunition and military experts.
p The interference of the foreign powers facilitated the task of crushing the peasant war and putting an end to the T’ai-P’ing state. Between 1863 and 1865 the government troops succeeded in capturing the vital strongholds in the T’ai-P’ing state. In the spring of 1865 Nanking was encircled and cut off from the surrounding countryside. Under Li Tzu-ch’eng’s leadership the besieged inhabitants defended their city heroically against overwhelming odds. Hung Hsiu-ch’uan finally committed suicide and on July 19th the walls of Nanking were blown up. The counterrevolutionary troops forced their way into the city and inflicted cruel reprisals on the survivors. Hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians were slaughtered, while Li Tzu-ch’eng was put to death with bestial cruelty. Scattered T’ai-P’ing units continued to fight on. Peasant guerilla bands remained active in various areas and for the next few years the Ch’ing monarchy was unable to curb peasant disturbances in the North. However the great peasant war was by this time clearly lost.
Yet this great wave of revolutionary ardour did have enduring results. For a start it provided the popular masses with useful 465 experience to turn to in the course of subsequent uprisings. At the same time, even representatives of the top-level feudal hierarchy who had played an active part in crushing the peasant movement were now coming to realise that it was vital -to make some changes in the existing social and economic patterns with a view to preserving and bolstering their power.
The Deepening of Class Contradictions
in Japan in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
p In the mid-nineteenth century the socio-economic structure of Japan provided a classic example of a feudal society. More than 80 per cent of the population of Japan consisted of peasants, who not only produced their own food and clothes but also an adequate supply of primitive agricultural tools. The land belonged to powerful nobles, while the peasants held hereditary rights of tenure of small plots, and were obliged to perform a large number of labour services and pay numerous taxes. More than half their harvests went to pay their rent for the land which was estimated according to very complicated criteria and depended in the main on the caprices of the nobles’ administrative staff and tax-farmers. Different labour services were demanded by different landlords as they happened to think fit. The feudal dynasty of the Tokugawa shoguns which had been ruling the country since the middle of the seventeenth century started introducing a complex system of rules and regulations in an effort to entrench the established socio-economic relations and to rule out the possibility of any future change.
p Cruel exploitation of the peasants and incessant crop failures because of frequent natural calamities led to mass famine and the impoverishment of the peasantry. The peasants fell more and more into debt and soon found themselves in the clutches of the money-lenders who gradually took over their holdings, despite the official ban on transactions involving the transfer of land.
p Traders and money-lenders started to play an increasingly important role in village life, undermining the bastions of feudal relations and accelerating the ruin of the vast mass of the peasantry.
p The abject poverty of the majority of the peasants and the growing dependence of the feudal rulers on merchant creditors had led by the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century to extremely acute class contradictions. Peasant uprisings broke out more and more frequently and the emblem of the peasants’ movement—poles with bundles of rice straw tied on to the top of them—became a common sight all over the country. The 466 peasants took up arms to drive out tax collectors and to oppose the despotism and arbitrary rule of the landowning nobles, merchants and tax-farmers. Many impoverished samurai also joined in this struggle. In the hundred years from 1704-1803 alone, more than 254 major uprisings were recorded (three times more than had occurred in the preceding century). Unrest grew among the discontented sections of the urban poor—the craftsmen and petty traders. Although there was no organised liaison between the two groups, the very fact that these two movements came into being at one and the same time created a serious threat to the established order. The urban poor opposed the arbitrary administration prevalent in the large trading enterprises, which worked hand in glove with the ruling nobles.
p Despite the fact that the peasant uprisings were largely isolated outbreaks in different parts of the country and the nobles usually succeeded in quelling them, their very frequency served to seriously undermine the socio-economic structure of Tokugawa Japan more and more as time went on.
p The first half of the nineteenth century was marked by an unprecedented wave of peasant uprisings. More than 99 large-scale uprisings were recorded in a mere ten years (1833-1842), which was more than the total for the whole of the seventeenth century. Uprisings of the urban poor also became more frequent and largescale. In 1837, the joint revolt of the townspeople of Osaka and the peasants from the villages roundabout evoked eager response throughout the country. The insurgents burnt down the houses of the rich, broke into the rice granaries and distributed rice among the people.
Far-reaching economic processes which were taking place in the country were undermining the feudal political superstructure—the dictatorship of the powerful landowning nobles headed by the feudal dynasty of Tokugawa warlords.
US Expansion in Japan
p Such was the situation obtaining in the country when the capitalist countries started to put pressure on the Japanese government.
p In June 1853 a flotilla of four American warships fitted out with highly efficient artillery and under the command of Commodore Perry approached the shores of Japan. A representative of the Japanese government demanded that the ships withdraw from the straits of Uraga, proposing that they make their way to Nagasaki, the port open for foreigners, and there seek official contacts with the Japanese authorities.
p Perry however paid no attention to this order, declaring that he had been assigned to hand over the President’s message to the 467 Emperor at that particular spot with all due ceremonies. In the course of subsequent negotiations Perry also pointed out that he would not hesitate to land his marines in order to carry out the mission which had been entrusted to him.
p The Japanese forts in that area were very poorly fortified, only having a few dozen small-calibre cannon at their disposal with no more than ten to fifteen shells each. In order to deter the foreign invaders false batteries made of logs were set up. However, the Americans soon saw through this subterfuge: waves splashed up against one of these batteries and the wooden “cannon” floated away. The Japanese government was completely unprepared to defend its shores.
p The American command, realising the helplessness of the Japanese authorities, moved their ships right up into Tokyo Bay close to the shogunate’s capital. There was nothing left for the Japanese to do but comply with the demands of the American envoys. With an escort of 300 officers and men and with the muzzles of his cannon trained on the shore Perry handed over the missive of the American President to the Japanese officials. The President proposed in this missive that the Japanese government should abandon its isolationist policy, conclude a trade agreement with the United States and permit the Americans to set up bases for their fleet on Japanese territory. Perry declared that if these proposals were not complied with, the United States would send a much more powerful fleet. He demanded that an answer be delivered by April or May of the following year.
p Perry gave the Japanese all this time to think the proposals over because he had meanwhile to set out for China where the T’ai-P’ing revolt was threatening the concessions the USA wrested with such difficulty from Peking.
p The Americans decided to support the reactionary Ch’ing regime, demanding in exchange a number of additional concessions. In order to crush the anti-feudal revolution and hoping to exploit the situation so as to penetrate China still further, Perry left Japan as soon as possible.
p Meanwhile the government of the shogunate was in a state of helpless panic. As the date of Perry’s arrival drew nearer, the differences of opinion in ruling circles grew all the more acute. However, Japan’s military weakness was so evident that the majority came out in favour of accepting the American proposals. In February 1854 the American flotilla, which by now consisted of nine ships and a total force of two thousand sailors and soldiers, again appeared in Tokyo Bay. This time the Americans behaved in a still more arrogant manner. In order to frighten the Japanese the cannon were fired constantly. Perry, threatening to open hostilities, demanded that the Japanese sign a one-sided 468 treaty similar to that which the United States had concluded with China in 1844. Within range of the American cannon all ready to destroy the capital the Japanese government had no other course open to it but to agree to the conclusion of such a treaty.
p Under this treaty the Japanese were obliged to open the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American ships, put Shimoda under American control, grant the Americans the right to buy fuel and food supplies in Japan and accept any type of foreign currency for internal circulation. This treaty forced on Japan opened the way for the penetration of American capital of yet another new market. Perry’s arrogant tactics met with warm approval in the USA and he was granted a reward of 20,000 dollars by the government.
p This treaty with the USA was followed by similar ones forced on Japan by the British in 1854, by Holland in 1857, by France in 1858 and subsequently by several other countries. In February 1855 negotiations between Japan and Russia which had lasted for two years finally reached completion and the first RussoJapanese treaty was drawn up which gave Russian vessels the right of entry to the ports of Shimoda, Hakodate and Nagasaki.
These unequal treaties forced on Japan aggravated the critical position of the feudal order more than ever. The flooding of the domestic market with foreign wares dealt a heavy blow at Japanese industry. The signing of the various treaties served to arouse more active opposition to the shogunate. The landowning nobles, sections of the impoverished samurai, the courtiers in the Emperor’s immediate entourage at Kyoto and even part of the bourgeoisie intimidated by the competition of foreign traders strongly criticised the treaties and the policy pursued by the shogunate. All these various opposition groups started to press the imperial court to return to its traditional conservative policy.
The Meiji Restoration
p The shogunate government conscientiously carried out the various stipulations of the treaties concluded with foreign powers, but at the same time secretly made plans to challenge the foreigners. The government hoped in this way to undermine the position of the imperial court, which attempting to gain a following among the people by means of its slogans irreconcilably opposed to foreign penetration and influence. A number of British were murdered and various buildings belonging to foreigners were burnt down. In response to this the Western powers bombarded the coastal towns killing dozens of innocent people.
p In 1863 the criminal bombardment of Kagoshima—the centre of the Satsuma princedom—by the British fleet and the 469 bombardment of Shimonoseki in 1864 by combined British, French, American and Dutch fleets, and various other repressive measures on the part of the capitalist powers of Europe and America inflamed the masses with still more bitter hatred than before. Throughout the country voices were to be heard demanding that the Japanese should unite their ranks to drive out the foreigners. The troops of the princes of Satsuma and Mori (Ghoshu) threatened to revolt against the shogunate if steps were not taken to drive the foreigners from Japanese soil.
p The shogunate sent troops out against these insubordinate princes while at the same time refusing to allow the British and French to send military units into the country for the defence of their respective residences. Tariff charges on imported goods were reduced to a mere 5 per cent. These developments served to make the situation in Japan still more explosive.
p Diplomats of the imperialist powers actively interfered in the country’s internal affairs: France supported the shogunate ( supplying its troops with arms and financing its campaign against the princes), while Britain supported the anti-shogunate opposition, counting on a subsequent weakening of the centralised power.
p Meanwhile the peasant war in the interior was spreading rapidly. Peasant wars were breaking out one after the other in endless succession. As many as 130,000 peasants took part in the uprisings in Kii province alone. In 1866-1867 uprisings took place throughout the whole of central Japan. The opposition forces also gained ground in the towns, where by this time the young Japanese intelligentsia had started to become familiar with progressive ideas of European democratic thinkers. Gradually the bourgeois opposition, which in addition to the factors mentioned above was opposed to the opening of the country to European industrial goods, joined the struggle against the shogunate, and so did many impoverished samurai.
p The rallying force in this struggle were the feudal clans of south and south-west Japan which traded most actively with the foreign powers. Some of their prominent leaders were young samurai. An alliance of princes of the south-west (Satsuma, Choshu and Tosa) were accorded firm support by various banking houses and the Emperor’s immediate entourage. Many detachments of half-mercenary, half-volunteer soldiers and others made up of impoverished samurai, craftsmen, peasants and urban poor soon joined the princes’ troops. An important role in the leadership of this alliance was played by those sections of the nobility who had recently turned to bourgeois pursuits of commerce and industry. Officially the aim of the uprising was to restore the Emperor’s rights which had been usurped by the shogunate. In 1867, a fifteen-year-old by the name of Mutsuhito was on the 470 throne, a convenient tool in the hands of the anti-shogunate alliance.
p In October 1867, the alliance demanded from Shogun Keiki that he “restore” to the Emperor all his former powers. The Shogun, realising the gravity of the situation, agreed to stand down and then in hiding in his castle in Osaka started to make preparations for the inevitable hostilities. The Shogun was still the country’s leading landowner in possession of enormous estates. He also had large armed forces at his disposal which had been trained by the French. With these he set out that same year to confront the enemy, but suffered a decisive defeat at the battle of Fushimi. The war continued throughout 1868 and 1869 but the odds were on the side of the anti-shogunate coalition.
p The most prominent role in the new government was played by representatives of the Satsuma clan—Okubo and Kido. They tried to unite the country and Europeanise it, first and foremost in the fields of arms and technology. This policy did not satisfy the interests of the peasants who demanded that feudal patterns of agriculture be abolished and that the land be handed over to them.
p Peasant resistance did not end with the overthrow of the shogunate. In the period 1868-1878, 185 large peasant uprisings broke out, some of which involved as many as 250,000 people.
p The bourgeoisie and the landowners united in a joint attack against the peasantry, putting down such outbreaks by means of regular blood baths.
The events of 1867-1868 are referred to in Japanese history as the Meiji restoration, Meiji (meaning "enlightened rule”) being the official name of the reign of the Emperor Mutsuhito.
Notes
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Chapter Ten
-- RUSSIA IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
(1800--1860) |
Chapter Twelve
-- NATIONAL BOURGEOIS MOVEMENTS
IN EUROPE AND AMERICA |
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Part Two
-- THE MIDDLE
AGES |
CHRONICLE OF EVENTS | >>> |