Marx's views on British imperialism in India did undergo an important development in the course of the 1850s, but at no point did they have anything in common with the position of imperialism's cheerleaders, whether in his day or our own. In one article he wrote that "England was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them," although it might have been "the unconscious tool of history in bringing about [a] revolution" in Indian society.
Throughout the 1850s, Marx repeatedly and explicitly condemned the brutal impact of colonialism. "The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilization lies unveiled before our eyes, turning from its home, where it assumes respectable forms, to the colonies, where it goes naked." And he wrote that only when capitalism has been overthrown, "will human progress cease to resemble that hideous pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain." In the same article, he commented, "The Indians will not reap the fruits of the new elements of society scattered among them by the British people, until in Great Britain itself the now-ruling classes shall have been supplanted by the industrial proletariat, or till the Hindus themselves have grown strong enough to throw off the English yoke altogether." That final remark represents the development in Marx's views. At the start of this period he seems to have assumed that progress in India would first require a socialist revolution in Britain. Later he realized that a successful anti-imperialist struggle in India might precede--and be the precondition for--a successful uprising by the British working class. Thus, when mutinies and uprisings took place across northern India in 1857, Marx defended the rebellions, showing how it was a response to the barbarism of British colonial policy. Because the revolt drained Britain's military and financial resources, weakening the power of British capitalists, Marx declared that "India is now our best ally"--even though conditions were not yet ready for the rebellion to succeed. And Marx soon generalized this view, arguing, for instance, that it was in the interests of British workers to support the struggle for Irish independence.
