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.
Marxism itself is not Eurocentric. Sure, some of the very very first Marxist writers likely were, as they were people of their own time and space. I would not expect Karl Marx to have a firm grasp on the material conditions in China, Africa, or South America. Same with Engels, Lenin, etc., so their literature will have a lot of references that focus on Europe. It is their personal foundation.
However, Marxism has been built upon and expanded greatly since then, with many thinkers from all over the world making their own contributions. Mao, Castro, Che, and many other non-Europeans took what previous thinkers contributed and applied it to their own material conditions, then wrote about it to add to the common knowledgebase.
At this point, Marxism has more contributions from outside Europe than from within.