proprietor or the sole proprietor of the land while the real communities were only hereditary possessors. Elsewhere, however, he also claimed that in the Asiatic form, the real proprietor, proper, is the commune. Property appears only as communal property in land. The individual member was only a possessor. In Capital, however, the Asiatic form of property always stood as that of the monarch or the state in contrast with private property.
variegated concept (a bundle of rights that can be shared or distributed) than unsophisticated Marxist theory allows.
Finally, for a student of Chinese history, many aspects of the AMP in the G r u n d r i s s e , such as its occupation of the lowest chronological place in historical development, the absence of private property, and the social and economic stagnation, do not fit with historical reality of China. If Chinese history is difficult to interpret by means of historical materialism, the theory of the AMP fares little better.
After the publication of the preface to the Critique of Political E c o n o m y , Marx, as many people have noticed, never used the term AMP again. In his mature work, C a p i ta l , non-W estern societies (notably India and China) were viewed comparatively by Marx. Many special characteristics of the AMP were mentioned repeatedly, such as the state ownership of landed property, the necessity of state management of artificial canals, government appropriation of surplus values through state taxes and government corvee, reproduction of self-sufficient communities, and the combination between small-scale agriculture and domestic manufacture, etc.
The most notable development of Marx's concept of the AMP in
Capital was that the term was used by Marx as a special form of the appropriation of surplus value in contrast with other modes of production. According to Marx, private ownership of property was characterized by the fact that surplus value was appropriated from the direct producers, in different ways, by the owners of the means of production. The different forms of surplus value appropriation indicated different social, political and economic systems of society. The distinction between the AMP and other modes of production lay
Chapter 3, Marx's Concept of the AMP, 91
in the fact that since the state appeared to be the sole proprietor in the AMP, it becam e the sole a p p ro p riato r of su rp lu s value. There was th erefo re no class conflict, only conflict betw een g overnm ent and peasants. Unlike class conflict in class society, governm ent in the AMP represented the interests of the society as a whole, including those of the peasants. As a result, social conflict in the AMP differed from class conflict in o th er m odes of production. This is w hy although Marx som etim es called the AMP "general slavery", he clearly stated that slavery neither su sp en d ed the conditions of labour nor m odified the essential relation.
From tim e to time, how ever, Marx also used the term AMP in connection w ith prim itive com m unal society. He stated in Theories of Surplus Value, for example, that the original unity betw een the worker an d the conditions of production had two m ain forms: "the Asiatic c o m m u n a l sy s te m (p rim itiv e c o m m u n ism )" a n d sm a ll-sc ale agriculture based on the family (and linked w ith dom estic industry).9 In Capital, volum e 1, Marx cited a footnote from his A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, in w hich he confirm ed th at the various different forms of Rom an and Teutonic private property w ere deducible from different form s of Indian com m on property. He also w rote th at p easan t ag ricu ltu re on a sm all-scale and p ro d u ctio n by in d e p e n d e n t artisan s ... form ed the econom ic fo u n d atio n of the co m m u n ities of classical an tiq u ity at th eir best p erio d , after the "p rim itiv e o rien tal system of com m on o w n ersh ip of lan d " h ad
9 Marx, Theories of Surplus Value, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1978, vol. 3, pp. 422-423.
d isappeared, and before slavery had seized on production in earnest (Capital, vol. 1, p. 367, footnote l) .10 In fact, this connection of the AMP w ith the p rim itiv e com m unal p ro p erty form an d w ith the later developm ent of private p roperty in the W est could be traced back to the Grundrisse, in w hich Marx also saw the "oriental form " as the original form of p roperty — direct com m on property. He stated that this form of property "m odified in Slavonic; developed to the point of antithesis, b u t still as the secret, if antithetical, foundation in classical and G erm anic property" (Grundrisse, p. 497).
These statem en ts co n tin u e to cause confusion. As B rendan O 'Leary w rites, "the reader ... is not left w ith a very clear distinction b e tw ee n p rim itiv e com m unism an d the A M P ".* 11 M arx him self p ro v id e d no ex p lan atio n . O ne p o ssib ility m ig h t be, as G eorge Lichtheim says, that M arx's studies of India and China "had m ade him aw are th at O riental society posed a difficulty for his schem e [of historical and social logic] ... From 1850 onw ard ... [Marx] engaged in an increasingly system atic attem p t to bring O riental society w ithin the com pass of his general th eo ry ".12 A nother possibility m ight be that
10 One interesting thing is that when the English version of C apital was published in 1887, Engels omitted "oriental" from the footnote mentioned above. This made it more "standard"and less confusing, but the Chinese edition kept the original version.
11 Brendan O'Leary, The A s ia tic M o d e of P ro d u ctio n : O r ie n ta l D e s p o tis m , H istorical M a teria lism and Indian H isto ry, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1989, pp. 111,114,135.
12 George Lichtheim, M arxism : A H istorical and C ritical S tu d y , Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961, p. 145.
Chapter 3, Marx's Concept of the AMP, 93
w ith the increasing aw areness of the achievements of the 19th century anthropology, Marx did try to reconsider the relationship betw een the AM P an d p rim itiv e co m m u n al societies (none of w hich w ere d isco v ered by M arx him self), b u t he n ev er fo u n d a convincing solution to this problem . One obvious difficulty for Marx was that if the AMP w as to be identified w ith prim itive com m unal society, all special characteristics attached to the AMP m u st be rein terp reted , because they w ould become outstanding for their "class" nature.
The fate of the AMP became even m ore complex in M arx's later years w hen he studied the m ost recent achievem ents of 19th century anthropology. In a letter to Engels in 1868, Marx seemed quite happy to claim, after reading M aurer's w ork, that "m y view that the Asian or Indian forms of property were the original ones everyw here in Europe here receives new confirm ation (although M aurer know s nothing of it)".13 On the other hand, Marx also rejected Kovalevsky's extension of feudalism to non-E uropean societies. He even criticized Phear as "an ass" w ho described the organization of the (Indian) rural com m unity as feudal. In the draft of his reply to Zasulich, Marx denied that the tran sitio n from com m unal to p riv ate p ro p erty d id not ap p ear "in ev ery circu m stan ce". The c o n stitu tiv e form of the "ag ric u ltu ral com m une" m eant either that the elem ent of private p ro p erty gained the u p p e r h an d over the collective elem ent, or that the reverse took
13 Marx to Engels, March 14, 1868, in Letters on "Capital", ed. and trans. by Andrew Drummond, New Park Publications, New York, 1973, p. 127.
place. "Everything depends upon the historical context in which it is situ ated ".14
The m ost in trig u in g thing here is th at w hile M arx seem ed in clin ed to g eneralize the AMP by id en tify in g it w ith p rim itiv e com m unal society, he strictly limited the scope of feudalism. If there is so m eth in g different from M arx's previous view , it w as th at Marx seem ed m ore an d m ore inclined to believe th at it was not Asia but Europe that was unique in its historical development. Therefore, it is not strange th at w hen the R ussian N aro d n ik M ikhailovsky show ed his discontent w ith the determ inist tendency of historical m aterialism , M arx argued that his historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in W estern E urope w as n o t a histo rico -p h ilo so p h ical th eo ry of the g en eral co u rse fatally im p o sed on all p e o p le s.15 In his letter to Z asulich, M arx fu rth er stressed that the historical inevitability of capitalist developm ent was "expressly restricted" to "the countries of W estern Europe" (Shanin, p. 100).
O u r brief survey of the history of M arx's concept of the AMP show s that until the death of Marx, the question of the AMP rem ained unsolved. For a student of M arxist theory of history, the concept of the AMP creates m ore confusions than clarifications for M arx's m ore
14 Marx, the first draft of a reply to V. I. Zasulich, in Teodor Shanin (ed.), L ate M a rx and the R ussian Road: M a rx and ‘the Peripheries of C a p ita lism ', Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1984, pp. 109-110. Hereafter "Shanin" and page numbers in the book.
15 Marx, "A Letter to the Editorial Board of O tech estven n ye Z a piski" , in Shanin, p. 136.
Chapter 3, Marx's Concept of the AMP, 95
general theory of history. In the triangular relation betw een historical m aterialism , the theory of the AMP and actual Chinese history there exists m ore incom patibility than m utual corroboration. This situation can only lead to strong doubt as to w hether there is a unified Marxist theory of history, let alone w hether this theory is applicable to the study of Chinese history.