THE meaning and application of these concepts changed as Marxism was applied to different contexts and 'time frames'. The evolution of 'Finance capitalism' was later cognized as denoting a new stage of imperialism by Lenin who was working to revolutionise a half-European. half-Asian country like Russia in the 20th century. This is a stage where technological development coincides with the exploitation of foreign markets by capital — consequently the arena of the battle of socialism slowly shifts from the countries of western Europe to that of eastern Europe, Russia, Asia, Africa and the Third World.

But this shift also added new features to Marxism and it did not remain a methodology derived exclusively from schools of 19th century western Europe. In the modern age of imperialism two more vital components are added, one from the most advanced capitalist power, America, further west, and the other from erstwhile medieval and ancient civilisations, and now backward countries, further east. From the former came the practical scientific philosophy of efficient management. From the latter came the best of its past wisdom and visionary sweep.

This enriched Marxism of the modem age, the age of imperialism and proletarian revolution came to be called Leninism, following its successful application in Tsarist Russia. It meant, more and more, the seeing of the whole through part, the complex through the simple, the general through the particular, the abstract through the concrete and the real through the visionary. It also bridged, further, the gap between theory and practice by taking Marxism out of the rationalist positivism of 19th century Europe. This had come to dominate ail schools of bourgeois thought and had trapped 19th century Marxism in the metaphysical categories of European academia, away from modern, dialectical developments in America and the East. Soon Marxism re-emerged, as an 'experience', as a philosophy of action which brought the intellectual and the worker, the doer and thinker, the most advanced section and the 'uneducated' mass, together in a unity of purpose, belief and understanding.

The post second world war period saw the revival, and taking over, of many democratic and socialist ideals by the western bourgeoisie. This denoted a completely new situation, beyond traditional Marxist unique of the reactionary role of the bourgeoisie, and was accompanied by the further rise of non-European nations. Following the successful Marxist revolution in China, accomplished by the Chinese Communist Party, led by Mao Ze Dong, Chinese wisdom, intuition and scientific relativism became parts of a Marxism which established the revolutionary role of the peasantry in the Asiatic context. The contradictions of the modern age were cognised as operating at several levels, both antagonistic and non-antagonistic, and within different sections of a single class.

By the 60s and the 70s, a scientific and technological 'revolution' finally arrived in the west, even as America surpassed Europe as the most dynamic culture of the world. At the same time, the traditional picture of Asia and the Third World, built by European scholars during the phase of colonialism, was altered fundamentally. A vast reservoir of technological and historical knowledge, 'unseen' during the time of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, came into focus. Suddenly, many fixed axioms of the 19th century, which were very much a part of early 20th century Marxism, were toppled. It was seen that the focus on man, 'the individual', rationalism, science and thiswordliness began not in renaissance Europe, but Islamic Arabia. Many European innovations in science and technology were drawn from Asia, where, by the 16th century, countries like India and Turkey had become thriving empires. They were evolving their own vision of the 'modern' based on a spirit of composite culture and a fusion of several Asiatic strands, like 'Indo-Persian' or 'Indo-Islamic' in India. Their incipient bourgeois growth and developmental possibilities were stamped out only after bitter and conscious political struggles with European powers.

This rediscovery of history opened up new possibilities for the present as well. The theory and practice of Marxism was no longer confined to the classic ground of Russia and China. The question came up as to whether it could be enriched by the ethos of the Indian sub-continent which stood as a unique window to the historical and epistemologieal insights of Hinduism, Islam, as well as the secular currents of ancient and medieval India. Also, unlike China, here the native bourgeoisie succeeded in leading an anti-colonial movement and installing a democratic form of government, even while maintaining sophisticated semi-colonial relations as well as strong feudal remnants and postponing a bourgeois-democratic revolution. The challenge in India has opened the way for Marxism to interact with the fresh possibility of engineering a revolution in a vital but backward link of modern parliamentary democracy in the world.