Sub-Saharan Africa: the formative nature of pre-colonial societies

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Periodical article

Title:	Sub-Saharan Africa: the formative nature of pre-colonial societies
Author:	Kiselyov, G.S.
Year:	1988
Periodical:	Africa in Soviet Studies
Pages:	75-87
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Subsaharan Africa
Subjects:	modes of production subsistence economy
Abstract:	Although strong polemics on precolonial societies, which have been taking place in the Soviet Union from the early 1960s, are now diminishing, the interest of historians, political economists, sociologists and philosophers in the Soviet Union in the problem of the 'Asian mode of production' (AMP) is still very strong. This article focuses on some aspects of the idea of the AMP as related to precolonial societies of sub-Saharan Africa. It begins with a discussion of these aspects by recalling the main ideas of Marx on the 'Oriental' issue. In the last years of his life, Marx expressed important ideas about the evolution of the economic system based on the 'Asiatic form of property'. He observed in the development of 'Asiatic' societies of the Orient the following features: establishment and consolidation of private ownership of land, development of commodity and money relations and intensification of both social and property inequality. Turning to sub-Saharan societies in precolonial times, it seems that the African material testifies to the fact that sub-Saharan Africa in precolonial times saw no formation of big landed property. Notes, ref.