Marx's materialist method (critique of political economy), in my view, remains fundamental to understanding colonial capitalism. It is also the case, however, that his analytical and theoretical content did not sufficiently absorb the colonial underpinnings of capitalism (thread) https://twitter.com/Hesketh1981/status/1360914029338845184

Yes, Marx's post 1857 writings offer powerful auto-critique of European supremacism. This is further evident in Capital, where he identifies colonialism/slavery as the primitive accumulation of capital and locates wage labor as standing upon the pedestal of slavery

And, later, Marx, in his exchanges with Russian thinkers, rethinks his position on the transition from peasant to capitalist agriculture. This opens a non unilinear, potentially non-Eurocentric peasant, rather than industrial worker, centered path of revolutionary praxis

There is, however, a gap between Marx's increasing recognition of the significance of colonialism to capitalism and his continuing development of a more Eurocentric analytical and theoretical framework for understanding capitalism

For example, he observes both colonialism and Western European enclosures to be the principal moments of the primitive accumulation of capital. Yet, clearly only the European enclosures come to hold analytical/theoretical significance for Marx.

Marx ends Capital with the European enclosures giving rise to the distinctive qualitative relation of capitalism - capital-labor. But there is no similar analytical/theoretical consideration given to colonialism, even as it is observed to be central to primitive accumulation

It is almost as if the colonial register offers a quantum of capital stock, but it is the European register of enclosure wherein the qualitative essence of capital is forged. There is no theorization of a qualitative capitalist relation forged through the colonial encounter.

If it did, Marx would have been able to give more analytical weight to his otherwise essential observations on colonialism/enslavement.

And this would have, forced, in particular, either the differentiationn of the category of labor via race, or potentially a qualitative relation beyond capital-labor in the colony. That the agrarian question involves a qualitative relation of race in addition to class.

Luckily, third worldist, Black, and Indigenous traditions of Marxism have done the work of taking up some of Marx's vital observations of the colonial foundations of capitalism and given them more analytical/theoretical weight.

These include Samir Amin's articulation of the core/periphery qualitative relation, and the work of Utsa Patnaik, Sam Moyo, Amilcar Cabral, Mariategui, and so many more

In sum, we should not be defensive of thinking through Marx's analytical limits. His Eurocentric limits do stand in tension with his powerful critiques of European supremacism, but this does not mean we should avoid addressing them.

There is a line from Marx's '18th Brumaire' through to Engels 'Peasant Question', Lenin's 'Development of Capitalism in Russia' and to the late 20th century renewal of these texts by EuroMarxists like Brenner, Byres, and Wood that entirely ignores the colonial context

These texts, again, are essential, but they are incomplete. Fanon's point here on the need to stretch Marxism in the colonies. Marx's analysis of the agrarian question, since it only draws on European experience, embraces as 'progress' the move from peasant to worker

The Fanonian agrarian question does give analytical/theoretical weight to enslaved and colonized labor provisioning European workers with food. In this analysis, there is nothing progressive to be found in the transition to capitalism.