I’m reading through some of our literature (namely Socialism, Utopian and Scientific) and I really get the sense that many of our intellectual forebears think that everything important in philosophy happened in Europe. Granted, European philosophy is necessarily of primary relevance in a critique of early capitalism, but when Engels traces the history of these strains of thought (materialism, dialectics, etc.), they all go back to ancient Greece. I find this suspicious.
Is this a consequence of lopsided education, either of the target audience or of Engels himself? Have non-western Marxists grafted dialectical materialism onto Asian or African philosophy? Are there analogous movements within these cultures that dovetail nicely with Dialectical Materialism? Or do they more or less take Engels at his word here? Maybe I’m misinterpreting something.
No. Of course, in the time of Marx and Lenin it definitely was, because Europe and USA had the most developed capitalist system. But by design it is not. Even reading them you will quickly see that it is irrelevant other than them naturally having the most knowledge and information about their region - they did expect the comrades from other part of the world to pick up the marxism and fill the holes. And exactly that happened.
So, before someone will bash the Lenin for calling Russia asiatic tyranny - better read more, for example this.