Marx's revelation and criticism of the Manchu Dynasty

Huang Lizhi

When commenting on the relationship between China and Britain in the 1850s, Marx said "two sentences". One sentence is a strong attack on British colonial robbers, of course, based on Marxist moral stance and solidarity with the Chinese nation; however, Marx also said another sentence, that is, the disclosure and criticism of China's Manchu Qing Dynasty's closed policy, which is based on the historical position of human civilization.

In the article "Chinese Revolution and the European Revolution" in 1853, Marx made such a conclusion about the Opium War: "The prestige of the Manchu Qing Dynasty was swept away as soon as it encountered British guns, and the superstition of the Celestial Empire was fatally hit."

"The British cannon destroyed the authority of the Chinese emperor and forced the Celestial Empire to contact the world on earth. Complete isolation from the outside world was the first condition for preserving old China, and when this isolation was broken by violence under British efforts, it must be followed by the process of disintegration, just as the mummy carefully preserved in a closed coffin was bound to disintegrate as soon as it came into contact with fresh air."

In 1858, in the History of the Opium Trade, Marx wrote: "Semi-barians uphold moral principles, while civilized people fight against them with selfish principles. A large empire, which accounts for almost one-third of the population of mankind, ignores the current situation, is content with the status quo, artificially isolates the world and tries its best to deceive itself with the fantasy of perfection. Such an empire is destined to be defeated in a life-and-death duel: in this duel, the representatives of the stale world are moral, while the representatives of the most modern society are to obtain the privilege of buying cheaply and selling - this is really a strange couplet tragedy that any poet can think of or dares of.

In his 1859 article, he believed that China's natural economic situation combining agriculture and handicraft industry has long blocked the import of British goods - just like the East India, "but In the East India, the combination of agriculture and handicrafts is based on a special land ownership system. And the British, as the highest local landlord, can destroy this land ownership system, thus forcing some of India's self-sufficient communes to become pure farms, producing raw materials such as opium, cotton, indigo, marijuana, etc. to exchange goods with the British. In China, the British have not been able to exercise this power. That is to say, China's natural economic state has exacerbated China's isolation.