Marxism şi naţionalism, continuitate şi ruptură. Două teme de sociologie istoricăîn patru etape ale istoriei româneşti

Victor RIZESCU

DOI: 10.47743/asui-2025-0025

Abstract: The article uncovers the debate about unilinear vs. multilinear explanations of social development as it featured in the context of Romanian communist culture. Placing at the center the figures of the sociologists Henri H. Stahl and Miron Constantinescu and their vindication of the model of the Asiatic mode of production as an alternative to that of feudalism and as offering a more appropriate conceptualization of the Romanian early Middle Ages, it also delves into the problem of the paternity of the respective idea, placed at the forefront of unorthodox interpretations in the historiography of the early 1970’s, in order to be marginalized soon thereafter. It is shown that, formulated by reference to the Marxist theoretical frame of reference available for the researchers at the time, the alternative „feudal” vs. „tributary” modes of production nevertheless drew insights from the tradition of pre-communist historical sociology, highly concerned with the broader question of the plurality of modernization trajectories within the horizon of global social change. It is further disclosed the fact that, although in the main the entire debate was a product of the period of relative liberalization that the communist regime experienced over the period 1965-1971, its prerequisites were created over the previous, Stalinist age. It moreover exhibited survivals during the period of nationalist communist which followed. In the end, it is shown that neither of the three successive stages of communist culture was able to rediscover and re-conceptualize one particular compartment of the pre-communist debate about the deviation of Romanian modernization process from the western model: the one focused on the prevailing patterns of social stratification, centered upon a non-feudal and non-capitalist ruling elite extolling the characteristics of a bureaucratic oligarchy.

Keywords: Marxist historical sociology; Asiatic mode of production; unilinear vs. multilinear social development; communism and nationalism; oligarchy vs. bourgeoisie.