[PEN-L:3172] Re: Aztecs

[Rosser Jr, John Barkley]

Louis,
     We've been through this one before, but you've 
forgotten.  There were almost regular and periodic revolts 
by the Indians in Peru from the 1500s on.  See _The Ghost 
Dance_ by Weston LaBarre for a good accounting of them.  
The claim that there was little native resistance until the 
1700s is incorrect.
Barkley Rosser
On Wed, 10 Feb 1999 10:17:59 -0500 Louis Proyect 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Robin Hahnel:
> >I have no disagreement with much of the rest of the above. And I have
> >been made aware that the ecological technology present throughout the
> >Incan empire in many ways was more advanced than any found in the same
> >places today. [My daughter is an archeologist currently studying
> >potentially superior ancient agricultural techniques of pre-Columbian
> >Andes civilizations.] However the word "combined" in the above account
> >can disguise a world of imperial sins. I might also note that among
> >Peruvian archaeolists of my acquaintance the Incans themselves -- the
> >conquorers from the Cuzco area -- were generally considered to be less
> >advanced not only culturally but also in agricultural technology than
> >many of the civilizations they conquored. However, as one Peruvian
> >friend of mine put it, "there should be no doubting that the Incans did
> >know how to make other people carry rocks for them."
> 
> As I already pointed out, my statement about the Incan "relatively light
> touch" was overstated and I appreciate Robin's correction. Although I
> appreciate his serious and measured response, which I received privately
> yesterday, I still think there is a fundamental difference in methodology.
> I regard the Incan empire and the Spanish colonial empire in a completely
> different manner, as I already tried to make clear yesterday. This is the
> basic difference which has divided folks. Jim Devine nailed the differences
> on the head by pointing out the unique forms of exploitation that attend
> commodity production as opposed to the tributory economy of the Incan empire.
> 
> The other thing that must be kept in mind is that the Incan empire has
> remained a symbol of anti-imperialist resistance through the centuries from
> the first 18th century peasant revolt to the modern Tupac Amaru guerrilla
> front in Uruguay. This is not simply reactionary longing for monarchies.
> This is what I wrote about the 18th century struggle:
> 
> The colonial administration ruled without much native resistance until the
> 1700s, when armed movements broke out over a fifty year span. What is
> remarkable about these movements is that they had no use for the
> "enlightenment" values that were inspiring revolt in Europe or even in
> Haiti. These peasant rebellions called for a return to the old ways of the
> Inca empire, which now seemed like a golden age.
> 
> José Gabriel Condorcanqui led the most important rebel movement. He was a
> trader and Indian noble who took the name Túpac Amaru II, after the last
> Inca executed by the Spaniards. He claimed to be a descendant of this
> chief. Túpac Amaru's rebellion covered the entire Southern Andes, roughly
> 200,000 square miles. Alberto Flores Galindo's article "The Rebellion of
> Túpac Amaru," also contained in the Peru Reader, details the scope of this
> powerful movement, which at its height drew support from 100,000 Indians.
> 
> Túpac Amaru was also known as "the Inca." The rebellion, according to
> Galindo, was a product of sharp economic contradictions brought on by a
> recovery in the southern Andes, when new supplies of silver were
> discovered. Stepped up production and commerce flooded the local economies
> with new cash goods that the Indians could not afford. They also had to pay
> onerous taxes, while lacking access to the labor market and its cash wages.
> 
> After the Spaniards captured and executed, Túpac Amaru, they decided to
> wage a campaign against Inca culture. They prohibited Inca nobility from
> using titles, destroyed their paintings, and forced the Indians to dress in
> European clothing. They hoped to assimilate the Indians in this manner, but
> it had the opposite effect. The hatred of the European deepened.
> 
> Túpac Amaru has been a symbol of 20th century anti-imperialist struggles.
> Armed groups in Uruguay in the 1960s, and Peru in the 1980s and 90s,
> appropriated his name. It is certainly odd to see Marxist organizations use
> a figure of Inca nostalgia for their own struggle, which is supposedly
> about modernization and progress. What could be more backward-looking than
> to yearn for Inca past, that by any standards was not egalitarian or
> democratic?
> 
> These contradictions are at the heart of the Peruvian class struggle, which
> has always defied schematic answers.
> 
> Starting with the interaction between Spanish colonial-feudalism and Inca
> tributary modes of production, you encounter a clash between two systems
> that really do not fit neatly into a Marxist textbook. While Inca society
> might have been tributary, at the local kinship level of the ayllu, the
> tribe owned the property communally and made decisions collectively. As
> long as the local unit could satisfy the requirements of the imperial
> state, the social organization of the village could adhere to its own
> standards. The Inca state, while imperial, was not totalitarian.
> 
> The Spanish colonial administration was not a pure case of feudalism
> either. Its purpose was to organize and regulate wage labor for the needs
> of commercial-capitalism in Europe. Hence, the relations between lord and
> serf were not as organic and traditional as those that had evolved in
> Europe over centuries. Alienation and hatred characterized the relationship
> between ruler and ruled. Racism and religious bigotry were the root causes.
> Centuries of meztiso attempts to wipe out Indian identity have not pacified
> them, as the recent Maoist rebellion proves.
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Louis Proyect
> 
> (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
> 

-- 
Rosser Jr, John Barkley
[EMAIL PROTECTED]