According to Marx, the AMP was a further development from the common ownership of property based on the clan system. Since it contained within itself all the conditions of reproduction — the unity
Chapter 4, the First Discussion 143 of ag ricu ltu re and dom estic in d u stry — it lasted such a long time, surviving until the W estern capitalist m ode of production dissolved the special Asiatic economic foundation: the unity of agriculture and fam ily m anufacture based on common ow nership of land.
In the first ro u n d of d iscu ssio n , h o w ev er, m an y C hinese historians rejected the above notion and asserted that Chinese society, like th at in the W est, indeed had the capacity to develop. N o one seem ed to have accepted the notion that C hinese society, after the d isin teg ratio n of prim itive com m unal society, rem ained unchanged from rem ote antiquity to the eve of W estern intrusion. It either passed th ro u g h the "norm al" social stages of slavery and feudalism , or entered into bureaucratic society after its "prim itive feudalism ". In this discussion, there are two points w orthy of notice.
First, though some historians interpreted the AMP as a special form of slavery or feudalism , none of them seem ed to believe that this m o d e of p ro d u c tio n lacked the in tern al dynam ics of evolution. A ccording to these h isto rian s, w ith the d ev elo p m en t of C hinese society, som e special characteristics of the AMP, w hich m ight cause stagnation, lost their im portance. Lii Zhenyu argued that the economic fo u n d atio n of the AMP — the village com m unal lan d system —
becam e insignificant after the Zhou, although the rem nants of this system could be found throughout the entire history of China. But, Lii argued, they could also be found in E uropean feudal society (Lii, the AMP, p. 47). H u Q iuyuan, as show n, m aintained th at the u n ity of ag ric u ltu re an d dom estic in d u stry form ed the econom ic base of feudalism everyw here in the world.
On the other hand, how ever, m any historians adm itted that after the Zhou-Qin, or Q in-H an period, Chinese society became "relatively" stagnant. The in terp retatio n of the n atu re of this "stagnant" society v a rie d am ong th e h isto ria n s. As w e h av e seen, Tao X isheng interpreted this stagnant society as a bureaucratic society. W ang Ya'nan and W ang Lixi thought that after the collapse of Chinese feudalism , commercial capital developed. Because of the lack of overseas markets, constant invasion by barbarians, restriction by traditional ideology and o th er reasons, com m ercial capital could n o t be tran sfo rm ed into in d u strial capital b u t becam e land investm ent. As a result, m odern capitalism could not grow up in C hina.27 Li Da found eight reasons to account for the stag n atio n of C hinese feudal society. A part from geographic environm ent, the heavy feudal corvee and feudal rents and taxes w e m en tio n ed above, these included: freq u en t w ars w hich recurrently destroyed the developing productive forces; rem nant rural c o m m u n ity b a se d on fe u d a l p a tria rc h y ; a sp ecial fo rm of a d m in is tra tiv e sy stem w h ich w as c h arac terize d by c en tralized governm ent and the separation of political from economic power; lack of new relations of p roduction enabling the transform ation of either p e a sa n try or m erch an ts in to new social classes; an d the heavy influence of C onfucianism w hich h a m p e red the d ev elo p m en t of natural science and technology (Accounts, pp. 687-703).
Despite various interpretations of the cause of this stagnation, the above explanations had one thing in com m on w ith Marx: in this
27 Wang Ya'nan, "On Feudalism", op. cit., pp. 29-34. Wang Lixi, "A Prelude to the Controversy over the History of Chinese Society", op. cit., p. 15.
Chapter 4, the First Discussion 145 sta g n a n t society th ere ex isted no seed s, no elem en ts for the d ev elo p m en t of capitalism . In other w ords, w hile ancient C hinese society m ig h t not necessarily have rep eated ly rep ro d u ced itself —
w hile it m ight have evolved into slave-ow ning society, feudal society, commercial capitalist society, or som ething else from w ithin itself — it could never develop into a full-blow industrial capitalism w ithout the im pact of W estern intrusion. This view was different from the later official version of Chinese history.
This can be seen from the revision of Mao Z edong's account of C hinese history. W hen M ao first p u b lish ed his article "C hinese Revolution and Chinese C om m unist Party" in the late 1930s, he wrote:
It was not until the middle of the 19th century, with the penetration of foreign capitalism, that great and fundamental changes took place in Chinese society. Foreign capitalism played an important part in the disintegration of China's social economy; on the other hand, it undermined the foundations of her self-sufficient natural economy and wrecked the handicraft industries both in the cities and in the peasants' home, and on the other, it hastened the growth of a commodity economy in town and country.^
After 1949, the official version added the follow ing w ords after "great changes took place in Chinese society":
As China's feudal society had developed a commodity economy, and so carried within itself the seeds of capitalism, China would herself have developed slowly into a capitalist society even without the impact of foreign capitalism. Penetration by foreign capitalism accelerated this
28 Mao Zedong, "Chinese Revolution and Chinese Communist Party", in Minoru Takeuchi (ed.), MZDCW, vol. 7, p. 103. English translation from MZDSW, vol. 2, p. 309.
China's social economy.29
H ere, Mao, as well as m any com m unist historians, highlighted the com m odity econom y as the seedbed of capitalism. N ow for Marx, the com m odity econom y existed in various social form ations. In the antiquity, it resulted in slave economy, while in the m odern w orld, in the capitalist m ode of production. In ancient Rome, commercial capital developed m ore highly than it had in antiquity. But it did not bring ab o u t any p rogress in the d ev elo p m en t of in d u stry . In Asia, the in tern al solidity of precapitalist and national m odes of pro d u ctio n p resen ted striking obstacles to the corrosive influence of commerce (Capital vol. 3, pp. 391-392).
H aving considered the m ajor controversies raised by M arx's concept and exposition of the AMP, as well as Chinese opinions on som e specific applications of it, w hat, we m ay now ask, characterized the first Chinese discussion of the AMP?
Like his m ore general theory of history, M arx's theory of the AMP sh o u ld n o t be co n sid ered as a w ell-organized, w ell-p resen ted or com plete theory. It had m ore "rem nants" of the influence of pre- M arxist ideas than the theory of historical m aterialism . Marx seem ed not to have solved the tension betw een his concept of the AMP and historical m aterialism before his death. On the other hand, as a theory originally designed specifically for Asia, it also proved incom patible in detail w ith the historical reality of Asian countries and in particular of