World History: The Mughals

Today we are looking at the last of the so-called 'Gunpowder Empires': the Mughals. The Mughals are perhaps one of the most influential of India's empires with many aspects and images of India which the West has originating from the Mughal Empire. Since the 1990s India's Hindu right has been on the rise, currently the Hindu nationalist party (the BJP) is in power, and memory of the Mughals has been tense for them. The Mughals were Muslim ruling largely over Hindus and many of the Mughal's actions went on to be integral part of Indian culture, and even then many of the early conquests of the Mughals were against other Islamic rulers. Today we'll look at the Mughals to see how important they were in shaping India. We'll start with the first ruler, Babur, and go until the end of the reign of Aurangzeb so we can briefly look at how the empire started to collapse before British rule came about.

Babur and Foundations

Babur in a painting done years after his death

Late many of the other states which we've been looking at the Mughals owed their existence to the Mongols - in fact the word 'Mughal' or 'Moghul' comes from 'Mongol' and was invented in the nineteenth century to describe the empire. The Mughal Empire would be founded around 1526 by Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur, or Babur, who was from the Safavid Empire. Babur made claim that on one side of his family he was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan and the other side Timur. For that reason they were often called the 'House of Timur'. It is believed that his autobiography, Baburnama, was written to clarify his legitimacy based on his apparent descent. Babur would often spend his early life waging war to subjugate new areas; he managed to besiege Samarkand and win at the age 14 but he would soon lose it. After 1504 he set out for good taking his mother with him - according to the Baburnama he would occasionally give the only tent to this mother to sleep in. The same year he took Kabul which would remain his favorite place in the world; it was also a key city along the Silk Road setting up later rule in India. Kabul was very diverse with many languages and cultures coexisting, much like India whom the Mughals would later rule over. However, city life never suited Babur and Kabul's revenue was too small for him. He wrote: My desire for Hindustan had been constant. It was in the month of Shaban, the Sun being in Aquarius, that we rode out of Kabul for Hindustan. In 1505 he set out attacking the Afghans and continued the Timurid tradition a swift attacks and brutality for opponents (and those who disobeyed). Anyone who missed the night watch had their nose split in two. In 1519 he even named his son Hindal meaning 'Take India'. To show his devotion to his forces he publicly gave up drinking and claimed he was leading a jihad against the Indian forces. That way he could appeal to the piety of his forces who could martyred if they died. He also made an alliance with the Safavid shah to help his forces.

In the northern India the Islamic Delhi Sultanate had been in power. Due to the alliance with the Safavids Babur claimed his was Shia whereas the Lodi dynasty of Delhi were Sunni. This was how Babur managed to call a jihad. The Delhi Sultanate had been steadily shrinking which benefited the Mughals. Babur mixed traditional cavalry with muskets, hence why the Mughals are considered a 'Gunpowder Empire', which allowed his 1,500 soldiers to defeat the Lodi's forces of 100,000 cavalry and 1,000 elephants at Panipat outside Delhi in 1526. He soon moved into Delhi visiting the mausoleums of two holy men, Nizamuddin Auliya (d.1325) and Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki (d.1235), and Delhi soon was made his new capital. The Lodis crowned a new leader and allied themselves with the Rajputs, who wanted to expand into lands held by the Delhi Sultanate, and as they marched on Agra in 1527 they met in battle. At the Battle of Khanwa through a mixture of Babur's skill, use of cannons, and when a Hindu chief joined Babur's forces the Rajputs and Lodis were defeated. The new Mughal Empire now stretched across most of northern India.

Babur loathed and liked his new empire in India. In the Baburnama he wrote: 

Hindustan is a country that has few pleasures to recommend it. The people are not handsome. They have no idea of the charms of a friendly society, of frankly mixing together, or of familiar intercourse. They have no genius, no comprehension of mind, no politeness of manner, no kindness or fellow-feeding, no ingenuity or mechanical invention in planning or executing their handicraft works, no good flesh, no grapes or musk melons, no good fruits, no ice or cold water, no good food or bread in their bazaars, no baths or colleges, no candles, no torches, not a candlestick.

He did however praise it for being 'a large country with lots of gold and money. The weather turns very nice during the monsoon.' He praised the generations of tradespeople and how there were many, and he loved the wildlife. Babur would long for Kabul and when he died he would be buried there. Furthermore, the Baburnama would be written in Turkic, and a few poems in Persian, instead of Persian or Hindi which were more widely spoken. The Mughals are well renowned for their construction but it was more limited under Babur. Mostly they were mosques, to show his piety, including the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya which was demolished in 1992 by a Hindu mob as it was believed that a Temple of Ram was demolished to make room for it - something quite pertinent as Ayodhya is where Ram was apparently born.

The Babri Masjid

Mughal Administration and Rule

Before we look at the other Mughal rulers and how they shaped India we need to understand how the state functioned. Of course, throughout Mughal rule this did change. The empire was multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-caste. After the royal family those at the top of society were the ashraf, the nobility, who were made of Muslim families who had migrated from the Persian, Arabian or Turkish-central Asian regions. There were also the mansabdar, a rank introduced by Akbar, often revolving around the military and sometimes the civil service. A mansabdar earned his standing (of course society was patriarchal) based on his zat and suwar. Zat was his rank bestowed by the emperor which often determined the maximum limit of soldiers they had, and suwar was his horses and riders. A mansabdar of 3000-zat 1500-suwar during war had to provide 1500 cavalry but during peace it would be a lot less as that way they could get more money. This system does appear confusing as it was subject to change and historians still are debating what zat and suwar were at any time. There was also a zamindar, landowner, who were stronger in northern India compared to the south as Mughal rule was always stronger in the north. Traditionally zamindars acted a tax collectors for emperors collecting revenue from ryots (peasants) but under the Mughals their role expanded to include police, judicial and military positions as well. Thanks to the mansabdars and zamindars the Mughal system continued when time of trouble happened - something periodic at the start of the reign of each new ruler - although by the end of the Mughals this did cause issues for the state. For this reason some historians, like J.C. Heesterman, have argued that the Mughals were really of confederation of princes with the emperor being more of a powerful figurehead, however, this view has been contested. Of course, regardless the emperor was at the top of society. During military campaigns they often personally went out to war, or their sons would. Like with the early Ottomans and Safavids succession wars would break out unless powerful or favorite sons managed to remove them early on. Babur's son, Humayun, learnt this the hard way when he made his brothers governors and went on to regret it when they vied for power themselves. The harems could also hold sway. Women in court could hold informal power and female relatives of the emperor could exert influence through their husbands.

The expansion of the Mughals

Humayun and the Sur Interregnum

Humayun (1530-40 and 1555-6) has largely been shafted by historians due to the successes of his father and son. Unlike his father he was more interested in magic, mysticism, and astrology compared to fighting, but he was intensely religious - a court figure, Abdul Karim, would be called Abdul due to Karim being a name of God. As mentioned earlier women could play a great influence in court and Humayun's half-sister, Gulbadan, wrote one of his biographies showing how he was peaceable and humane as a ruler. However, Humanyun's rule was never as secure as Babur's. In 1532 a Pashtuni leader, who had started to become prominent under Babur, Sher Khan Suri took hold of Rohtas in Bihar who managed to smuggle in his soldiers who were disguised as women. Soon enough Gaur, Bihar, and Jaunpur (all in the lower Ganges region) fell to Suri. In 1538 Humayun set out to confront Suri in Bengal 'and unfurled the carpet of pleasures', i.e. his stay in Bengal would be in luxury. Everything went wrong at once. His brother, Hindal, executed Humayun's spiritual guide as his older brother Kamran marched from Punjab to stake his claim. In June 1539 Humayun's forces met Suri's at Chausa and the Mughals were roundly defeated. As they had dug in this made the artillery became useless and a bridge collapse caused a great part of the Mughal forces to drown where they were 'dragged by the crocodile of death down into the waters of annihilation'. Humayun himself was almost drowned until he was saved by Shamsuddin Atga of Ghazna whose wife, Jiji Anaga, was later made Akbar's nurse. With his brothers carving up their own domains and with Suri forming his own empire Humayun fled to Kandahar and then to the Safavid Empire. 

While in the Safavid Empire Humayun became close to Shah Tahmasp and Tahmasp finally managed to get the Mughal nobility to convert the Shia Islam, the attempts to convert Babur were largely unsuccessful. For a long time after Safavid-Mughal relations remained strong - when Kamran asked Tahmasp to hand over his brother in return for Kandahar the shah refused. Tahmasp later offered Humayun his aid in retaking India in return for Kandahar, something which he agreed to. Thanks to this period in exile the Mughal nobility would become greatly influenced by Persian culture and when Kabul went back into Humayun's hands it became a major center for Safavid artists. Meanwhile, back in India Suri's reforms proved to greatly shape India and later Mughal rule functioned due to his reforms. The precursor to the modern rupee began under the Sur dynasty; the Grand Trunk Road was constructed which still links Bengal to Peshawar; 1,800 caravanserias and numerous fountains were set up between Sonargon in Bengal and the Indus; an efficient policing system was established to keep the roads safe; and on the Jhelum river, near modern Islamabad, the fortress of Rohtas was built which is a UNESCO Heritage Site today. Suri's reign ended quickly in 1545. He would expand the Mughal lands and while sieging the Kalinjar fort of the Rajputs a rocket ricocheted off of the fort's walls and exploded near Suri. Just as he died the fortress fell. His sudden death left his new empire weakened so Humayun could retake his empire in 1555. After dealing with Kamran he reinstalled himself in Delhi. Humayun's reign would soon end. As the call to prayer was issued Humayun tripped down the steps of his library tower leading to his death three days later. One scholar quite unflatteringly wrote that he 'stumbled into death as he had stumbled through life'. His tomb would become a place of pilgrimage after completion.

Akbar

Akbar

Akbar, sometimes called Akbar the Great, is seen as the greatest Mughal, and sometimes Indian, ruler. However, a great part of this was due to looking at his reign retroactively from the reign of his great-grandson Aurangzeb. Akbar has been seen as the humane ruler compared to Aurangzeb's tyranny despite how early in his reign Akbar would have many of his enemies who surrendered executed. He also personally threw a foster brother from a balcony in order to execute him. Also, in order to test whether children could learn to speak without being taught he had infants raised in isolation by nurses who refused to speak to them and a few years later it turned out they were mute and mentally retarded. Although he was barely literate, John Keay believed that he may have been dyslexic, Akbar was a great patron of the arts and is one of the most well recorded Mughal emperors thanks to scholar and Grand Vizier Abu Fazl. Akbar saw himself as being Indian instead of Turkic - he had great respect for his nurse Jiji Anaga, and Shamsuddin Atga would become an important official under him. He had the Baburnama translated into Persian and he oversaw a library of over 24,000 books of Hindi, Persian and Turkic origin. His own book, Akbarnama, has been seen as a great text of Indian literature. Art, literature and architecture boomed under Akbar's patronage although only the nobility could truly engage with this. Using firearms effectively with elephants and cavalry until his death in 1605 the Mughal Empire expanded exponentially. Kabul, Kandahar, modern Pakistan, Gujarat and Bengal were all added into the empire. This brought millions more people into the empire, Abu Fazl believed that around 100 million people lived there, bringing in more ethnicities, religions and economies. As a result the mansabdars were made.

A scene from Akbar's Ramayana

Akbar has been noted for his religious tolerance - although it could be due to pragmatism being a Muslim ruler in a primarily Hindu state. Akbar ended the jizya, the tax on non-Muslims, had a Muslim scholar al-Badauni to translate the Mahabharata and Ramayana, and had a personal copy of the Ramayana in 1588 depicting 176 superb illustrations. He encouraged Muslim, Hindu, Jat, and Christian scholars to have debates and after a spiritual moment while hunting in 1578 he took up yogic and Sufi practices, became a vegetarian, and started promoting religious syncretism more. He ate with the third Sikh guru and even created his own religion, Din-i-Ilhai. This religion primarily took from Hinduism and Islam but also brought elements from Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, and Akbar never had it enforced. At most 18 people joined the new religion and that was likely due to them trying to get into good graces with Akbar. However, his tolerance did upset the ulema (the Islamic religious community) and when Muslim revolts broke out some did issue fatwas against him. The economy expanded and changed under Akbar's rule as well, so much so that caste distinctions started to become blurred. Vaishyas (merchants), especially in coastal cities, started becoming richer than kshatriyas (warriors) and brahmas (religious elite and teachers). Lower castes could even get involved by converting to Islam and joining the civil service. Textiles and cotton soon became profitable and the Mughals soon became one of the leading producers of cotton. Akbar ensured that the Khyber Pass and Grand Trunk Road were well defended to ensure trade could happen unaffected by crime and sea trade expanded when the empire expanded into Bengal and Gujarat. The empire came into proper contact with Portugal, who established themselves in Goa in 1510, and with the Ottoman Empire further out. 

Jahangir and Shah Jahan

Akbar's last years were faced with a revolt from his son Salim but they made amends thanks to Akbar's mother so that upon his death in 1605 Salim could become emperor Jahangir. He was truly India - his mother, Jodhai Bai, was a Rajput princess. Jahangir's reign has often been viewed through the lens of his later reign which was consumed by drink and opium. Despite being much shorter his reign was very similar to his father's: conquest, crushing of rebellions, and consumption of the arts. Curiously he could be tolerant to rebels unless he had a severe hatred for them: one, Malik Ambar, was an Abyssinian eunuch whom was depicted in a painting being decapitated and shot with an arrow by Jahangir surrounded by angels. Women in court became very powerful under Jahangir, especially during his times of indulgence in opium, and one in particular was his wife Nur Jahan. Competent, athletic and intelligent she managed to ensure that she could be the true power behind the throne. She even got Jahangir's most loved son Khurram was married to her niece, Arjumand Banu, who in turn would become very powerful herself. Chinese historian Craig Clunas has written extensively on how conspicuous consumption shows social power - we see this in the Mughal court. To show that Safavid-Mughal relations were strong the painter Bishndas shows Jahangir hugging, or more like crushing, the Safavid ruler. Many paintings were done by Ustad Mansur depicting animals in his menagerie, and later Khurram's court, including a Siberian crane (which was not formally described until the 1770s) and even a dodo! It is believed that two dodos were gifts from the Portuguese. Similarly, the English East India Company seeking trade with India sent Sir Thomas Roe to meet with Jahangir. Roe described the life at court and lamented Jahangir's desire for luxury goods: wine, unusual games, European paintings, and even a carriage for Nur Jahan. He even once lamented how his personal gift to Jahangir was turned down as it was only worth 400 rupees.

Ustad Mansur's depiction of a dodo

The Red Fort today

In 1628 Shah Jahan, Khurram, became emperor and he has become known as the 'Great Builder' for his building projects. He had fought Malik Ambar and resolved to conquer Deccan (in southern India) after. Shah Jahan was devoted to his wife Mumtaz Mahal whom was given the title 'Queen of the World'. When she died giving birth to her fourteenth child in sixteen years in 1631 Shah Jahan was inconsolable. He wrote: The pleasures of worldly rule and kingship, which were mine with her by my side, have now become burdens and increasing sources of grief! Starting in 1632 he commissioned a grand mausoleum for her which would become the Taj Mahal costing 32 million rupees, or US $827 million in today's money. On top of the Taj Mahal we have the magnificent Peacock Throne, which went missing in the eighteenth-century, was commissioned and Shah Jahan even built an entire city: Shahjahanabad. This walled city is today's Old Delhi containing spacious living areas for nobles, a large mosque, and the Red Fort - a key building in Indian iconography today. A Persian architect, 'Ali Mardan Khan, was hired to create the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore and 'Abdul Hamid Lahori was hired to write the Padshahnama receiving 3,000 rupees and his own weight in gold. One chronicler wrote accurately that 'The treasury cried out, "Don't touch me"'. However, Shah Jahan regularly faced issues. In 1630 a famine led to 2 million starving to death, revolutions broke out among the Rajputs and Sikhs, and there was even a war with Portugal. During the wars his son Aurangzeb rose to prominence and soon became a key ruler. When rumors of Shah Jahan's health was going Aurangzeb seized Agra and imprisoned his father and sister, Jahanara, until Shah Jahan's death in 1666.

Aurangzeb

Aurangzeb

Aurangzeb has been known as a tyrannical and intolerant emperor ruling with an iron fist and enforcing Islam onto South Asia. Especially compared to Akbar he has been seen as the stereotypical Oriental despot draining the peasants dry as he enforced his religion onto them. However, in recent years his idea has been challenged, such as by Ayesha Jalal. It is true that Aurangzeb did rule with an iron fist, as did many rulers, and was deeply pious his rule has started to be seen as being more pragmatic than anything else. He did strictly enforce prohibition, poetry, and wearing gold colored clothing in court his other policies are seen as combining piety with pragmatism. Bringing back the hated jizya and reducing spending on lavish tombs (his own mausoleum is quite small) and consumption has been seen as a way to save money after the battering the treasury received under Shah Jahan. His destruction of Hindu temples have now been noted as being in retaliation for rebellious Hindu nobles. At times he did build Hindu temples and brought many more Hindus into the buraeucracy. Of course, this pragmatism was still at the expense of the non-Muslim citizens of the empire who became very disgruntled. For one, when Sikhs refused to convert he had Guru Tegh Bahadur executed in 1675. Under Aurangzeb three things from earlier Mughal rulers continued: expansion, economic growth, and conspicuous consumption. The consumption was different to that of earlier emperors combining piety with Shah Jahan's construction projects. Many mosques were made under Aurangzeb and some could be very extravagant, like the Babshahi mosque in Lahore. Expansion of traditional industries (like textiles), trade and taxation allowed the Mughals to be the largest economy in 1690 with it having a quarter of the estimated GDP of the world and monthly income was ten times that of Louis XIV's France (who made Versailles). Conquest had brought most of southern India under Mughal rule, only the southern tip of the subcontinent escaped Mughal rule, by his death in 1707.

The later collapse of the Mughals began in proper under the reign of Aurangzeb, Annemarie Schimmel even says 1707 is the end of the Mughals despite the last emperor being deposed by the British in 1858. Many revolts broke out with several coming from the Jats, Pashtuns, and Sikhs. The most important, however, is the rise of the Marathas. The Marathas were founded under a warrior called Shivaji Bhonsle who began almost a guerrilla campaign against originally the Sultanate of Bijapur and later the Mughals after a brief stint of imprisonment in Agra in 1668. Shivaji was crowned in 1674 founding the Marathas and began plundering Mughal, and Bijapur, lands to enrich his kingdom. Maratha forces would demand money from villages and towns, or they would burn it down, and then the Mughals would take their share leading the settlement to become impoverished. As Shivaji was Hindu and pushed Marathi over Persian he attracted local support and had locals blame the Mughals for their woes. Aurangzeb could have easily crushed the Marathas but he chose a defensive course by securing forts in Deccan assuming if they couldn't take forts they would be cut off from income and weapons. This failed and Aurangzeb's son, Muhammad Akbar, even fled to the Maratha court declaring himself emperor in 1681. After Shivaji's death in 1680 his son and widow continued the power of the Marathas. Within a century the Marathas had replaced the Mughals as South Asia's most powerful empire. However, the mansabdari and zamindari system meant that the empire retained control despite these setbacks. Despite some arguments that the empire began to fall in 1707 with Aurangzeb's death things only really went downhill after 1712 with his son's death.

Mughals and the World

The Mughals were integrated into a global world - originally Turkic they spoke Persian at court and ruled over a variety of peoples. A constant love-hate relationship emerged with the Safavids - both were Islamic empires whose origins were closely linked but this close proximity brought issue. When the Safavids retook Kandahar from the Mughals a painting was issued of Shah Jahan hugging the Safavid shah, and also making the emperor taller than the shah. The Mughals large population, in both the cities and country, allowed the production of many goods which in turn allowed trade. Their position allowed them to engage with both the Silk Road and Indian Ocean trade. Indian ivory, spices and cotton to name a few goods found their way to the Swahili coast in West Africa, China, Indonesia, and Arabia. Relations with the Ottomans were constant and one of Humayun's rebellious brothers were exiled to Mecca. Relations also opened with Europe - Portugal even established themselves in Goa sixteen years before the Mughals established themselves in Delhi. Indian states viewed their sovereignty as ending at the coast where the sea was free game. What can be seen as piracy was even encouraged - out of season fishers would go on raids and return the profits back home which would be collected by the Mughals or even kingdoms through taxes. This differed to the European idea of Mare Nostrum (Our Sea). First Portugal and the later English, French and Dutch wanted a monopoly on sea trade so edged out Indian sailors. Portugal issued a cartaz, or license, to sailors to operate and those without one were declared pirates. This enabled Europeans to edge out local traders or declare Indian enemies pirates. This was also utilized by locals to their advantage. The Mughals managed to convince the English that the Marathan navy was in fact a pirate navy.

A depiction of the British battling the Maratha navy whom they called pirates

Compared to later initial Europeans were respectful to Indian rulers as they were not in the position of power; however, in private they would portray Indians in an Oriental view, just one less derogatory of eighteenth century depictions. Sir Thomas Roe caused outrage in the court when he asked for a chair, for example. Europeans were dependent on local rulers and as a result Europeans were eager to lend their services to Mughals, or others like the Marathas, if it meant that they could get an edge over competitors. The Dutch and English East Indian Companies by the end of the seventeenth century had largely ousted the Portuguese and even the Scottish tried to get involved; bankruptcy through the failed attempt to colonize Panama prevented them from having any form of presence. England established trading posts in Surat (1619), Madras (1639), Bombay (1668), and Calcutta (1690) forming over forty 'factories', heavily armed trading posts, to take part in Indian trade.

The decline of Empire

Due to the length of this post and as I want to expand on this more in two other posts we will only briefly look at the collapse of the Mughals. Crispin Bates has identified seven key factors behind the decline as well as various other smaller ones. English Whig historian T.B. Macauley (1800-59) described the emperors between 1707 and the 1740s as 'a succession of nominal sovereigns sunk in indolence and debauchery, sauntering away life in secluded palaces, chewing bhang, fondling concubines and listening to buffoons' and there is some claim to this despite being very Orientalist. This description is a symptom not a cause of decline although it did aid in it - unable to prevent decline emperors secluded themselves further preventing pushbacks against such decline. After Aurangzeb's death the empire became less centralized so when prosperity dropped mansabdars to ignore Delhi's power and this was made worse by 'tax-farming'. This is when the right to collect taxes was granted to individuals for a limited period in an area except that this was abused with tax-farmers keeping revenue themselves or taking more taxes from the land destroying certain prosperous areas. Meanwhile, the merchant class, which had been growing more and more independent, had started by Aurangzeb's death to cease paying taxes, or even fund opponents. The Marathas and Mysore were just two states to benefit from this and their wars chipped away at the empire. External opponents also affected the empire like the Afghans whose leader, Nadir Shah, sacked Delhi in 1739 and carried away the Peacock Throne. We also see the rise of peasant community rebellions, especially with the Jats, and according to Bates these rebellions differed to earlier ones. Taxation had often been decided following a rebellion but by the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries rebellions were from the bottom up. Rebellions with no noble leaders prevented negotiated settlements. These several factors were just some of the many factors which caused the decline of the Mughals.

A British depiction of the Battle of Plassey, 1757, which saw Britain formally take over parts of India

Conclusion

The achievement of the Mughals cannot be understated. Turkic in origin, speakers of Persian, and rulers of Hindus and various other religious groups they represent the diversity of South Asia. They were so successful that the attempted successor states and British India adopted the administration and bureaucracy of the Mughals. Today we've only explored a small section of Mughal India; we have hardly explored women, caste, and economics in the empire for one. The Mughals highlight India's diverse origins and this has placed successive Indian governments in an issue in constructing an Indian nation. Under the Mughals South Asia became a powerful state and the explosion of the arts, like the Taj Mahal and Red Fort, have become impossible to intertwine from Indian nationhood. However, as they were made by Muslims the current wave of Hindu nationalism has tried to reinterpret such grandeur and the legacy of the Mughals as being more Hindu than Islamic. The Mughals greatly shaped India and will continue to do so.

The next World History post will focus on the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan and how they shaped Japanese history. The sources I have used are as follows:

-Annemarie Schimmel, The Empire of the Great Mughals: History, Art and Culture, (London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2004)

-Irfan Habib, (ed.), Akbar and his India, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997)

-John Keay, India: A History, (London: HarperCollins, 2000)

-Peter Robb, A History of India, Second Edition, (New York, NY: 2011, Palgrave Macmillan)

-Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, (London: 1998, Routledge)

-Crispin Bates, Subalterns and the Raj, South Asia since 1600, (New York, NY: 2007, Routledge)

-Catherine Asher, 'India: The Mughals, 1526-1858', in Jim Masselos, (ed.), The Great Empires of Asia, (London: 2010, Thames & Hudson)

Thank you for reading. For other World History posts please see our list. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby

The Importance of The Dream of the Red Chamber

An illustration by Sun Wen

When one thinks of classical literature we might think of The Canterbury Tales, Don Quixote or Ulysses. When one thinks of Chinese classics the two which spring to mind is The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West. The third most likely would be The Water Margin. One surprisingly glossed over in the West is Cao Xueqin's The Dream of the Red Chamber, also called The Story of the Stone, despite its popularity in China and Taiwan. My Chinese history lecturer once told the class that while studying in Taiwan the then most recent TV adaptation was the only show people spoke about with it having a popularity comparable to that of Game of Thrones. Dream tells us much about elite lives in mid-Qing China on top of being a good novel to start off with. It combines mysticism with family drama, Confucian and Buddhist theology with a coming of age story, and all in the backdrop of two mansions belonging to one large family. Containing thirty major characters and a further four hundred secondary and minor ones it is truly a huge work of fiction. Although initially hard to get into after the first few chapters the story becomes enrapturing.

Background

A statue of Cao Xueqin

Dream was written by Cao Xueqin and we know little about him. We don't actually know when he was born - either 1715 or 1724 - or either who his father was. Cao started writing the novel in the 1740s and died leaving it incomplete, and quite possibly the last 40 chapters were written by the scholar who formally published it in 1791, Gao E. For years after Cao's death the novel fluttered around in manuscript form before being formally published by Gao. Due to it being written in vernacular Chinese it was more readily received so quickly became viewed as one of the Four Classics (also including Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, and Journey to the West) or part of the Six Classics (Jingpingmei and The Scholars in addition to the other four). A publishing boom occurred under the earlier Ming dynasty and this continued under the Qing; although no more than 10% of the population were literate this equated to millions of individuals. Also a surge in consumption began under the Ming which continued under the Qing. This allowed Dream to become very popular fast. As early as 1812 there was an attempt to translate it into English but it took until the 1970s to get a good translation done by David Hawkes which I use.

Cao Xueqin also had a unique life which influenced Dream. His grandfather, Cao Yin, was a childhood friend of the Kangxi emperor (r.1661-1722) and his grandmother was even the emperor's wetnurse. Kangxi had gone on six tours of southern China between 1684 and 1707 where Cao Yin's household actually hosted Kangxi and his retinue. Cao definitely hosted the emperor twice where each cost him 50,000 taels of silver - something very much in Cao's budget. Despite being a Han Chinese family Cao's family adopted considerable amounts from Manchu custom - the Qing were Manchus ruling over primarily Han Chinese. However, after the death of Cao Yin and Kangxi the fortunes of the Cao family went into decline after they ran afoul of the new emperor, Yongzheng. Their properties were confiscated, they were forced to move to Beijing, and Cao Xueqin grew up in poverty. Although fictional it is widely believed that Dream is semi-autobiographical.

The Plot

Baoyu in the Yangliuqing print 

Dream has no defined genre being a mixture of a drama, tragedy, and a romance. Here I will go over a brief outline of the story and there will be a few stories. The story opens up with a Buddhist monk and Daoist priest stumbling upon a sentient stone which the goddess Nuwa had made to rebuild the sky. This stone was left over from when she was rebuilding the sky and has sat in loneliness since. The monk and priest decide to let the stone experience the mortal world. Eventually we get to the Jia family split between two mansions - Ningguo and Rongguo - in an unnamed city implied to be Nanjing. We get the implication that the stone is Jia Baoyu - 'Jia of the Precious Jade' - and he is given his name because he was born with a jade in his mouth. Baoyu is a very intelligent young man but can be sly, lazy and sensitive. He deals with two main love interests. The first is his cousin Lin Daiyu who is described as an unconventional beauty who is sickly and overly sensitive but caring and very intelligent. The second is his other cousin Xue Baochai with is a conventional beauty, intelligent and refined - basically the ideal Confucian woman. The 'main' plot to Dream is Baoyu's relations with Daiyu and Baochai but there are many more. Eventually Baoyu has no choice but to do the imperial examinations and the Jia family loses their wealth. Baoyu and Daiyu fall in love but he is forced to marry Baochai and anguished Daiyu dies. After completing his Confucian duty by becoming a father Baoyu retires to become a monk. 

Lin Daiyu burying flowers

What it tells us about Qing China

Dream is a heavily romanticized version of the life of a wealthy literati household although Cao Xueqin may have knew this already; Jia is a homophone for 'false' or 'fictitious'. Despite that we can still understand a lot about culture and society during the world of the Qing. Quite often later imperial China is viewed as being rigidly governed on inflexible laws which oppressed the young and women in the name of Confucianism. Dream shows us that in actuality these rigid laws were circumvented regularly. One aspect of this were the civil service exams where boys since the age of five were expected to learn virtually off by heart the Four Books and Five Classics by the time they came to do the exams in their late teens/early twenties. However, Dream shows how Baoyu is secretly reading poetry instead, much to the chagrin of his father, Sir Zheng. Women were not expected to read the Books and Classics but Daiyu secretly is - in fact Baoyu lies to her saying that he's reading the Books but really he's reading poems whereas Daiyu is reading the Books but she says that she is reading poems. Women play a huge role in Dream with most of the main characters being women, some with power, some not. In theory Sir Zheng is in charge of the Rongguo mansion but in reality his mother, Grandmother Jia, holds more power. As Baoyu and Daiyu are her favorite they can get away with a lot. In fact, one scene Zheng is making Baoyu make poems and Grandmother Jia sees that it is distressing him so she tells Zheng to go to bed - which he does. One of the key characters is Wang Xifeng, Baoyu's cousin-in-law, who ends up becoming in charge of the affairs of the Ningguo mansion, conspiring to eliminate women who her husband has affairs with, and is shown to have great respect in both mansions. 

The Jia family is at times implied to be a Sinocized Manchu family and their customs blend Han and Manchu customs. No references to footbinding is mind throughout the novel and people regularly salute 'in the Manchu fashion'. However, they all have Han names over Manchu names, speak and write in Mandarin, and openly wear clothing and jewelry associated with Han culture. This clearly reflects an aspect of Cao's life as his family were Han with Manchu influences. Baoyu's sister, Yuanchun, is an Imperial concubine and for her visit (which happens in Chapter 18) they build a garden for her and they call it the Daguanyuan. Gardens played an important role in upper class identity; one Ming scholar Qia Biaojia wrote constantly how much he needed a garden before he got one. During Yuanchun's visit she bestows gifts on her family which has been hypothesized as being reminiscent of Kangxi's visit. Finally, in theory the sexes were rigidly divided between the men's and women's inner quarters but Dream shows how this was regularly ignored. Yuanchun opens her garden for Baoyu and the household's girls to use together and if anything Baoyu spends more time with the novel's girls than the men. 

Sun Wen's depiction of the Daguanyuan

Religion, Spirituality and Dream

One key aspect of belief in late imperial China is that the supernatural and natural worlds were not as rigidly divided as the European and Islamic worlds. Although they were divided it was not as rigid as that of the Abrahamic faiths. One of the key scenes, in Chapter 22, has been interpreted as a poignant image of grief, an allegory of the inadequacy of love, and a Buddhist inspired discussion of impermanence. Daiyu chides Baoyu for wanting to throw fallen flower petals into a stream saying:

It isn't a good idea to tip them into the water...The water you see here is clean, but farther on beyond the weir, where it flows on beyond people's houses, there are all sorts of muck and impurity, and in the end they get spoiled just the same. In that corner over there I've got a grave for the flowers, and what I am doing now is sweeping them up and putting them in this silk bag to bury them, so that they can gradually turn back into earth.

One of the maid's is named Swastika in reference to her apparent luck - in Buddhism swastikas do not have the same negative connotations that they now have in the West thanks to Nazism. A Daoist and Buddhist brings the stone into the mortal world and it in turn enters the spiritual world after Baoyu does his Confucian duty to start a family. Baoyu's best friend, Qin Zhong, on his death bed meets the death god Yama who grants him a brief moment to say bye to Baoyu and another character is given a magic mirror to be cured by a monk but he ignores the advice which results in the mirror's magic killing him. Baoyu's first sexual encounter, in Chapter 5, is when he dreams of a fairy land, inspired by seeing an erotic painting owned by his aunt, where a fairy reveals the fate of the household's women through poem before sleeping with him. In Dream the supernatural and religious and natural and secular merge together shaping the lives of the characters.

Coming of Age

We follow Baoyu, Daiyu and Baochai from their early teens throughout the ensuing years leading to a plot which ambles along just as life does. After the first volume in particular the plot focuses on Baoyu's relations with Daiyu and Baochai. Early on in the novel we see Baoyu's first sexual experience and we later see this reenacted later on in the same chapter with his handmaid Aroma whom he falls in love with. Aroma later becomes Baoyu's unofficial concubine and he desires to be with her visiting her family during New Year. We even see homosexuality explored in the novel. It is implied that Baoyu and Qin Zhong may have been lovers and due to this they are made fun of by school bullies. Baoyu's page, Jokey Jin, defends his master in Chapter 9 on page 211 in the Penguin edition delivering possibly my favorite quote from any classical novel:

"Whether we fuck arseholes or not," he said, "what fucking business is it of yours? You should be bloody grateful we haven't fucked your dad. Come outside and fight it out with me, if you've got the spunk in you!"

We see this coming of age in relation to Buddhist impermanence as well. Like all youths Baoyu and Daiyu (less so Baochai) are particularly idealistic; Baoyu constantly shows his disdain for scholars and the examination system. However, the pressures of life and society eventually forces him to take the exam where he becomes a scholar. While he wishes to marry his true love Daiyu in the end he has to marry Baochai. This is also reflecting the fate of the Jia family. At the start they are a wealthy and by the end their wealth has been lost reflecting Buddhist impermanence and the sobering reality of maturity. 

Conclusion

Dream of the Red Chamber is a must read whether you are interested in Chinese history or not. All the stereotypes of Chinese culture is present: Confucianism, rigid family values, Buddhism, Daoism, status, and luxury. However, all these stereotypes are turned on their head and shown how diverse life was for the Qing elite. Dream remains as popular today as it was under the Qing. So far we've had around ten TV adaptations, two visual novels, two movies, and an opera. Likely we'll see another in the future. For those with an interest in China, classical novels, family drama, and stories of love and lost Dream of the Red Chamber is a must.

Baoyu and Daiyu in the 2010 series, The Dream of the Red Mansions

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Cao Xueqin, The Dream of the Red Chamber, trans. David Hawkes, (London: Penguin, 1973)

-Richard J. Smith, The Qing Dynasty and Traditional Chinese Culture, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015)

-Why you should read China’s vast, 18th century novel, Dream of the Red Chamber

-Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991)

-Jonathan Spence, Ts'ao Yin and the K'ang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966)

Thank you for reading and please feel free to leave any comments. For future blog posts please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby  

Comics Explained: Cable

Deadpool 2 is out soon and its main antagonist is Cable. This will be Cable's first live action appearance despite the fact that he is a major figure in the X-Men universe. As time travel is intricately woven into Cable's backstory his history is extremely complicated - something in keeping with the history of his parents, Cyclops and Phoenix. As a result we won't go over everything in Cable's history and we'll instead look at some key aspects of Cable's life.

Creation

Cable has technically had two debuts: Uncanny X-Men #201 in 1986 and New Mutants #86 in 1990. X-Men writer Chris Claremont wanted Cyclops and his partner Madeline Pryor to become parents and after going into labor in X-Men #200 she gave birth to Nathan Summers the next issue. Through events which we'll explain later Nathan did not appear again under 1990 as the adult Cable. It took a while for Cable and Nathan to become the same person. Editor Rob Harris wanted to shake New Mutants up by introducing a new character to lead the group and writer Louise Simonson thought a military leader, as opposed to Professor X, would be a good fit. They charged artist Rob Liefeld, who also made Deadpool, to make the new character. He said: 

I was given a directive to create a new leader for the New Mutants. There was no name, no description besides a 'man of action', the opposite of Xavier. I created the look, the name, much of the history of the character. After I named him Cable, Bob suggested Quinn and Louise had Commander X.

Cable would appear in New Mutants #86 in a brief cameo but he would make his full debut in the next issue. Meanwhile, in X-Factor it was decided to get rid of the baby Nathan and they decided to do this by sending him to the future which would open future possibilities for interesting stories. It was during Cable's own series, simply called Cable, starting in 1993 where it was decided to merge the two characters together: Cable was Nathan Summers from the future.

New Mutants #87, when Cable officially appeared

Origins

Cable's parenthood is confusing to say the least. Cable's father is Cyclops, Scott Summers, and his mother is Madeline Pryor who is confusing. One of the X-Men's main villains is Nathaniel Essex, Mr Sinister, who was a Victorian scientist obsessed with genetics. He became what he was thanks to Apocalypse, please see here, altering his biology and Sinister would later seek a way to destroy Apocalypse. Sinister became obsessed with Scott Summers and Jean Grey (Phoenix/Marvel Girl) and his eugenics inspired thinking made him believe that a child of Summers and Grey could destroy Apocalypse. However, Jean Grey was believed to have died (this later turned out to be false) so Sinister decided to clone Grey which led to the birth of Madeline Pryor. She eventually fell in love with Cyclops, married him, and became pregnant with who would become Nathan. However, the marriage was never strong due to Scott's withdrawn nature and longing for Jean, and this became worse when Jean turned out to be alive through the Phoenix force. Before Madeline could be discovered to be a clone Sinister had Nathan kidnapped in order to experiment on him. When Madeline succumbed to the darkness in her and caused a series of events leading to the opening of a gateway to a demonic dimension leading to her death Jean became Nathan's de facto mother. However, Apocalypse learnt of Sinister's plan to use Nathan so he had the infant kidnapped and infected him with the deadly Techno-Organic Virus - a virus which turns the host into a living machine. After they got Nathan back Cyclops was visited by Sister Askani from 2,000 years into the future when Apocalypse had taken power. Nathan would be their savior and they could cure him, but they were unable to return him to the past. Cyclops agreed to send Nathan to the future in order to cure him.

Baby Nathan infected with the virus

In the future Mother Askani feared that Nathan would succumb to the virus so she had him cloned just in case. Apocalypse then attacked and took the clone believing it to be the original Nathan. He raised the clone, calling him Stryfe, with the intention of using him as a vessel when his body failed. In The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix we find out that Mother Askani had the minds of Cyclops and Phoenix sent to the future and placed in two bodies in order for them to raise Nathan. They trained him to use his powers. As the child of Cyclops and Phoenix he inherited both of their powers allowing him to be a powerful telepath and could use psionic blasts. Thanks to the Techno-Organic Virus parts of his body is basically a living machine giving him greater endurance and even regenerative abilities, his bionic eye also allows him to see on more parts of the electro-magnetic spectrum. As he grew up Nathan would fight Apocalypse and his forces, even going back in time to Ancient Egypt to infect Apocalypse with the Virus himself, and he adopted the name Cable.

New Mutants and X-Force

X-Force #1

Cable went back to our present when his clone Stryfe did. Stryfe had formed a mutant terrorist group named the Mutant Liberation Front (MLF) so he could become powerful. Cable went to fight Stryfe and the MLF but as they had kidnapped two members of the New Mutants Cable sought their help. The group brought in Cable and made him their leader, although it would be later that they found out that he was a time traveler. He was particularly interested in one member, Cannonball, whom he found out would survive until the twenty-third century. This led Cable to believe that Cannonball would later become a member of an ageless group called the Eternals so Cable hoped to shape him to be a force for good in the future. While in the New Mutants the team would fight Deadpool who was hired to take them out. With New Mutants #100 Cable decided to reshape the New Mutants into a more efficient fighting force leading to the formation of X-Force the next month in X-Force #1. It was in X-Force where we find out about Cable's time traveling backstory and constant battling against Stryfe and Apocalypse. In X-Force #18 Stryfe even impersonated Cable in order to try and kill Professor X. 

Cable and Deadpool, Messiah Complex and Cable Vol. 2

Deadpool and Cable were never the best of friends

In 2004 Cable teamed up with Deadpool in Cable & Deadpool until it was cancelled in 2008. Cable wanted to be a greater force for good in the world and turned his old spaceship into an island in the Pacific called Providence where the greatest minds in the world could come to plan how to make the world better. Meanwhile, Deadpool had been hired by 'The One-World Church' to get hold of a virus which could turn everyone in the world blue. Through a series of zany events they both get infected, turn the world pink, and then restore everything back to normal (while also accidentally merging their DNA together). After the initial story-arc Deadpool and Cable would square off against one another, or they would begrudgingly work together. It is quite likely that this comic would go on to inspire Deadpool 2. During the end of the run Cable detonated Providence seemingly killing him but he returned at the start of his own comic once more. This led up to the Messiah Complex story which started in 2007. Marvel did an event called House of M which led to most of Earth's mutants losing their powers in 'M-Day'. During Messiah Complex the X-Men find out that a new mutant has been born and when they go to the infant's town they find it destroyed by anti-mutant zealots. We find out that Cable has the baby girl whom he says will be the 'Mutant Messiah'. During this story and after Cable tries to protect the girl, whom he names Hope, from another time traveling member of the X-Men called Bishop. In Bishop's timeline mutants have been murdered systematically and the remainder are kept in concentration camps with 'M' tattooed on their faces as Hope would murder millions of humans. In contrast in Cable's timeline Hope was the one to unite mutants and humans. Hence, Cable wants to protect Hope, whom he adopts as a daughter, while Bishop wants to kill her. Throughout the years jumping through time Cable started succumbing to the Techno-Organic Virus as a teenaged Hope wanted to return to the present. In X-Force #28 Cable ends up sacrificing himself to keep a portal from the future open to allow the X-Force to go through which causes the Virus to overtake him.

Cable's death

Return and After

As always with comics Cable did not remain dead. In the lead up to Avengers vs. X-Men we find out that Cable was transported to the future. There he found out that the world fell apart because the Avengers killed Hope - Hope can harness the Phoenix force which has the potential to destroy the world. Cable returned to the present and beat several of the Avengers, including Captain America and Falcon, before being stopped by Cyclops. Hope does manage to use the Phoenix force to burn the Techno-Organic Virus to cure Cable who vows to protect her no matter what. Since then Cable reformed the X-Force and has fought alongside other superheroes, including having another comic with Deadpool. 

Cable in the Uncanny Avengers

Thank you for reading and please leave any comments. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or get me on Twitter @LewisTwiby. 

Karl Marx: 200 Years On

May 5 1818 Karl Marx was born. Over the next 200 years his ideas would greatly shape how people would view and shape the world. I myself am inspired by Marx's ideas. With the exception of a brief period in the 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism in eastern Europe his ideas have been seen as the most, or one of the most important, by people across the world. The BBC radio show In Our Time in 2005 asked its listeners to name their most influential philosopher and with 27.9% of the vote Marx was voted the most influential with the second being David Hume at 12.7%. Today we'll look at three aspects of Marx. First, we'll look briefly at his life. Second, we'll look at what he believed. Finally, we'll look at his legacy.

Marx: A Brief Biography

Marx's Birthplace

Marx was born into a formerly Jewish family in Trier, then in Prussia's Rhineland province. His mother, Henriette Pressburg, was a Dutch Jew whose father had been a rabbi and his father, Herschel Marx, was a lawyer. After the defeat of Napoleon Trier came under the control of conservative Prussia who started enforcing a law barring Jews from public office. As a result Herschel converted the family to Christianity and adopted the name Heinrich over his Yiddish name. Although Karl's relations with his mother was always fractious he adored his father with him always carrying a photo of Heinrich, later even being buried with a photo of his father. Karl was the third of nine children with him becoming the eldest son when his brother died in 1819. Heinrich and Henriette were heavily influenced by Enlightenment philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, and until 1830 Karl (and his siblings), were home schooled by Heinrich and when they went to school they were taught by a humanist. In 1835 he started at the University of Bonn before being transferred to the University of Berlin which saw him engaging with more radical, liberal philosophy joining the Young Hegelians in 1837. Inspired by the recently deceased Hegel they used his views on dialects, mixed it with leftist discourse and then used it to criticize society. This would bring Marx into conflict with the state for the first time - socialism would become strong in Germany but Prussia itself was very conservative. Marx was forced to submit his thesis, The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, in 1841 to the more liberal University of Jenna as his more conservative professors at Berlin thought it too controversial. Throughout his time at Berlin he made friends with fellow Hegelian Bruno Bauer who helped influence his views. The two around 1841 had become atheists and had debated forming an atheist journal.

While at university Karl also became engaged. One of the most important people in his life was his wife, Jenny von Westphalen. Four years his senior she was extremely well-read and got on well with Marx with them getting engaged in 1836 with them finally marrying in 1843. This was aided by the fact that he had obtained his PhD and started writing in 1842 for a radical socialist paper, the Rheinische Zeitung, in Cologne. It immediately came under Prussian scrutiny - Marx said that 'our newspaper has to be presented to the police to be sniffed at, and if the police nose smells anything un-Christian or un-Prussian, the newspaper is not allowed to appear' - and Russia even banned it! 1843 he and Jenny moved to Paris where Karl started writing for a Franco-German paper, German-French Annals, which was largely staffed by German exiles. However, another key figure in leftist ideology worked there as well - the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. It was in Paris that he had his first daughter, Jenny, and he met his closest friend - Friedrich Engels. Both had adopted communism by then - in 1845 Engels wrote one of his landmark books The Condition of the Working Class in England - and the two became extremely close. They were so close that Engels would often bail out Marx and even wrote Marx's surviving children into his will. That same year the Prussian king convinced the French Interior Minister to ban another of Marx's papers and exiled him to Brussels.

An Original copy of the Manifesto

The next ten years were both the worst and best years of Marx's life. While exiled in Brussels he visited England for the first time with Friedrich, saw the birth of the rest of his children, formed the Communist League, and published some of his best known works. One of the most important was The German Ideology, written with Engels, which set out their views on historical materialism. In 1848 a series of revolutions swept across Europe of which many soon adopted socialism. During this time Engels and Marx wrote their most important book: The Communist Manifesto. Short with little specialized language its aim was to introduce the proletariat and working classes to the idea of communism and bring about revolution. However, the Manifesto was soon banned by several states (it took until the 1870s for it to get popular), and the 1848 Revolutions were soon ended by reaction and as Marx had used his own money to fund Belgian revolutionaries he got exiled once again. After a brief stint in Cologne Marx and his family moved to London in 1850. During the early 1850s the rest of Marx's children were born and would tragically die. Thanks to TB and general sickness only three (Jenny, Laura and Eleanor) of his children would make it to adulthood. This would destroy Marx and he never recovered from the death of his children.

A barricade during the Paris Commune

While in London Marx continued writing and once again became a journalist, this time for the New York Daily Tribune. On the side he would organize socialist meetings with Engels and continue developing his ideas. Shortly after Lincoln's election he even wrote to him to tell him how much he admired him. He even left the Tribune in 1863 when the paper abandoned abolitionism in favor of supporting a quick peace with the Confederates. Although Marx did hold sexist views he also taught his daughters around this time to remain independent and only marry if they wanted to do so. In 1864 the First International was formed. This was an attempt to bring together leftists around the world to organize the workers of the world and Marx soon became very influential in it. However, a split emerged in the International which became accentuated after the 1871 Paris Commune. During the tail end of the Franco-Prussian War the Parisian people rose up and established a commune based on sexual equality, universal suffrage, and socialism - something which excited Marx. It was soon crushed through a variety of means. Marx believed that the Parisians had started dismantling the state too quickly and that was why it was defeated whereas Mikhail Bakunin argued instead that they reason it was defeated was due to the state still existing. This can be seen as the first major split in modern leftist thought with those supporting Marx being known as Marxists whereas Bakunin's followers became known as anarchists. During the International Marx's joint most famous book was published: Das Kapital. I should rather say the first volume was published - volume II was published in 1885 and Engels published volume III after Marx's death in 1895. Kapital set out Marxist theory on economics outlining the differences between a capitalist and communist economy. 

On December 2 1881 Jenny, at the age of 67, died after years of liver cancer. The loss of Jenny hit him badly and the sickly Marx could not handle it. Only his friendship with Engels, his daughters and finishing Kapital could keep him going. He was hit even harder by the death of his daughter Jenny at the age of 38 in the January of 1883. Losing two of his loved ones and his own illnesses took the life out of Marx. Eventually on March 14 1883 he passed away. At his funeral Engels said: On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep—but forever.

Marx's grave today

Ideas

Talking about Marx's ideas can be difficult as many times they have been 'strawmanned' just because of how confusing they can be. Marx's opinions changed over his life and he often showed nuance in his views. For one, Kapital normally takes the individual out of history but in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon he places much emphasis on individuals, in this case Louis Napoleon. Marx himself was inspired by Enlightenment figures, like Kant, who placed emphasis on individuals. Today we'll just cover the basics. A key aspect of Marxist theory is how he treated sociology and history as a science and with that came historical materialism. This looks at how human societies develop over time and by looking at trends in such societies you can compare them. Marx argued that these societies can be determined by their mode of production which is how labor and means of production (how good end up being produced). These broad modes are hunter-gatherer, 'Asiatic', ancient/antique, feudal, capitalist, socialist and finally communist. He never really spoke of how a society transfers from one system to another and Marx did change his view. In the 1850s and 1860s despite opposing British rule in India (although at times Marx had a racist streak in him) he argued that it was a necessary evil to allow Indians closer to socialism. In 1881 writing to Russian leftist Vera Zasulich he did say that it was possible for Russia to skip capitalism to go straight to socialism. Furthermore, he argued that the mode of production offered a base for a superstructure which in practice was a society. For Marx, (and Engels), everything in society from power to the media to the family were thus determined by the mode of production.

Most of Marx's writing is based on capitalism and socialism. It is important to state as well that Marx did not invent socialism and communism - these ideas predate Marx with communism being coined by Victor d'Hupay in 1777. Instead he and other contemporaries simply shaped our current understanding of it. Marx defined capitalism as a ruling class, the bourgeoisie, who owned the means of production and used a laboring class, the proletariat, to produce goods. Surplus value, profit, was then given to the owner - like a factory owner for example. This is contrasted with a socialist or communist system where workers, or the state, own the means of production and surplus value is split equally between them. Marx also saw what was happening in contemporary society and now has been said of predicting the future: Marx argued that automation was inevitable. However, in Marx's view this was more because the tools of production are communally owned and that machines replacing people would allow them to do their desired ambitions. Everything was to fit into this economic system. For one, Marx argued domestic abuse and treating wives as property was inevitable under capitalism - a capitalist in his view saw their wife as another tool to be exploited leading to abuse. Marx believed that as the interests of workers and owners were different this would lead to a class war which would establish socialism. However, he argued that false consciousness prevents this. This is an idea where the ruling group makes the lumpenproletariat (non-conscious workers) believe that society is fine. Here the famous line 'Religion is the opiate of the masses' came into play; Marx viewed the revolutionary potential of religion being changed to keep the masses in line. The last part of Marx's ideas (although he did not coin the term) I want to mention is the dictatorship of the proletariat. When Marx used this he did not mean a dictatorship in the typical sense. This instead was just a system where the proletariat rules.

Legacy

The October Revolution - the first successful Marxist revolution

Marx's legacy cannot be overstated. Marxism has influenced millions around the world in ways unthinkable. The most obvious example is the formation of Communist parties across the world which either brought to power Marxists (as in Russia and Cuba) or greatly changed the country (as in India and the USA). The Communist Party of the USA before the Second Red Scare were deeply involved with the Civil Rights Movement, such as CPUSA defending the Scottsboro Boys, and many key figures in American society were influenced by socialism. Malcolm X and the Black Panthers were partially inspired by Marxist thought and at university Martin Luther King did read Marx - although he was more inspired by the Bible than Marx. Marxists have been deeply involved with women's liberation and anti-caste measures in India and Marxists were very involved with the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa; in his autobiography Nelson Mandela mentions how much he was influenced by Marxism. Many national liberation movements were influenced by Marxism as well including Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam - the US in the 1950s lamented that they couldn't support nationalists in Europe's colonies as many were communist. Socialist agitation in many countries, including the UK, were important in establishing unions, minimum wages, workplace safety measures, and even universal healthcare. One thing the British are universally proud of is the NHS - the publicly owned health care system. Today four countries have communism in their constitutions - China, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba. Cuba is now famous for its healthcare system, the amount of doctors it has and its high literacy rate. Marxism did develop a dark side. The horrors of Stalin and Mao, for example, lead to the deaths of millions. Many of the criticisms of Marxism lie with these examples.

British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote that Marx is the first word not the last and his ideas have been repeatedly altered and adapted. Vladimir Lenin expanded on Marx to cover imperialism and his view on the dictatorship of the proletariat would be that of the vanguard party. Many of the criticisms that Marxism is authoritarianism stems from Lenin's vanguard party which did lead at times to dictatorships - as with the USSR under Stalin. Rosa Luxemburg (who influences my own political views) disagreed with Lenin arguing instead that the vanguard party would lead to authoritarianism and that elections via soviets should happen. Antonio Gramsci would expand on Marx's false consciousness with the idea of hegemony - he argued that culture also was used to prevent revolution and that it had to be changed if socialism could be achieved. His ideas proved very popular as Marx's modes of production and superstructure did not explain racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. Marxist theory has greatly shaped academia. We see less emphasis on 'Great Man Theory' due to Marxist historians emphasizing 'history from below' and certain branches of history, such as feminist history, originated thanks to this. Post-modernism originated to criticize Marxism and other meta-narratives which has in turn inspired Marxist academics to look at their own research. Post-colonialist Gayatri Spivak is one such example of this. 

Conclusion

Regardless if you agree with Marx or not his writings have greatly shaped the world over the last century. Despite a brief period in the 1990s with the collapse of the USSR Marx's theories have remained deeply influential in many ways ranging from academics like Vere Gordon Childe (who coined the term Agricultural Revolution) to the Naxalites currently active in India to thousands who take part in May Day parades. Marx was far from perfect and his views were often flawed but they've inspired millions. Those who have been inspired by him have done horrific things but also many good things. No matter your position on his views it cannot be doubted that Marx and Marxism have been highly influential.

The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Jonathan Sperber, Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life, (New York: 2013)

-Gareth Stedman Jones, Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion, (London: 2016)

-Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 1848-1875, (London: 1975)

-Eric Hobsbawm, 'Marx and History', New Left Review, 143, (1984), 39-50

-Harvey J. Kaye, The Education of Desire: Marxists and the Writing of History, (New York: 1992)

-S.H. Rigby, 'Marxist Historiography', in Michael Bentley, (ed.), Companion to Historiography, (London: 1997)

-'Marx', BBC In Our Time

Thank you for reading. Feel free to leave a comment and for future blog posts please see our Facebook or get me on Twitter @LewisTwiby