Asiatic Mode of Production
아시아적 생산양식
A mode of production theorized by Marx in the early 1850s, characterized by the absence of private land ownership, self-sustaining village communities, and a centralized state controlling irrigation that extracts surplus from communities through taxation and corvée labor. In the late 1920s USSR, debate over the character of the Chinese Revolution saw Lominadze and Madyar argue that China was dominated by AMP remnants rather than feudalism, challenging the Comintern line of alliance with the Kuomintang. Stalin's leadership forcibly terminated the discussion in 1931 and banished the concept, branding it a Trotskyist deviation; it remains one of the most fiercely contested concepts in Marxism.
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- Wikipedia (EN) core Marx/Engels formulation, AMP characteristics, Soviet suppression in 1931
- Wikipedia (RU) detailed account of Marx–Engels correspondence, Plekhanov's interpretation, Comintern debates, Lominadze and Madyar as AMP proponents, 1931 forced closure and repression of participants
- Marxists Internet Archive Brian Pearce on the 'set of five' dogma, Comintern suppression of AMP, Trotsky's implicit AMP arguments on China
- encyclopedia.com Comintern rejection of AMP in 1921, Stalinist codification of rigid succession of modes after 1930, Wittfogel's Oriental Despotism critique