Rosa on opium

Rosa Luxemburg The Accumulation of Capital, ch 18

“Consequently, a stricter law was passed [by the Chinese] in 1833 which made every opium smoker liable to a hundred strokes and two months in the stocks, and provincial [Chinese] governors were ordered to report annually on their progress in the battle against opium. But there were two sequels to this campaign: on the one hand large-scale poppy plantations sprang up in the interior, particularly in the Honan, Setchuan, and Kueitchan provinces, and on the other, England declared war on China to get her to lift the embargo. These were the splendid beginnings of opening China to European civilisation – by the opium pipe.”

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