Tong Shuye, in tw o major articles published in Wen Shi Zhe in 1957,15 arg u ed in the first place th at the relationship betw een the re la tio n s of p ro d u c tio n an d p ro d u c tiv e forces sh o u ld n o t be u n d ersto o d as a rigid, one-w ay determ inism , in the sense th at the p ro d u ctiv e forces uniquely determ ine the form s of the relations of production, and that a given level of productive forces specifies a given set of relatio n s of p ro d u ctio n . In ancient tim es, Tong held , the p a rtic u la r n a tu r a l e n v iro n m e n t a n d p o litic a l a n d h isto ric a l developm ent could significantly influence the developm ent of society as a whole. Tong cited the following passage in the Grundrisse:
15 Tong, "Cong shengchan guanxi shihe shengchanli guilü shuodao xizhou chunqiu de zhongfa fengjian zhidu" [A Discussion of the "Law that the Relations of Production Must Suit the Productive Forces" and the Patriarchal Feudalism of Western Zhou and Spring-Autumn Periodsl, in Wen Shi Zhe, no. 1, 1957, pp. 1-16. "Yu sulian zhuanjia W. A. Josefweiqi shangque zhongguo gushi fenqi wenti" [A Discussion with Soviet Sinologist W. A. Josephvichi on the Question of the Periodization of Ancient Chinese Historyl, in Wen Shi Zhe, no. 3, 1957, pp. 13-23.
When they finally do settle down, the extent to which this original community is modified will depend on various external, climatic, geographic, physical etc. conditions as well as on their particular natural predisposition-their clan character (G run drisse, p. 472).
Again, in Capital, Marx says:
[This does not prevent] the same economic basis from showing infinite variations and gradations in its appearance, even though its principal conditions are everywhere the same. This is due to innumerable outside circumstances, natural environment, race peculiarities, outside historical influences, and so forth, all of which must be ascertained by careful analysis (C a p ita l, vol. 3, p. 919).
Under different circumstances, Tong argued, the same level of productive forces could produce different forms of society. The Bronze Age in ancient Egypt, for example, saw the rise of slave-owning society, but in [Western Zhou] China it produced a feudal society, while in ancient Greece and Rome, prim itive communal society still p rev ailed. 16 We leave aside the correctness or otherwise of Tong's
definition of the nature of the societies listed above; his purpose was to prove that the formation of a particular society was determined by many factors, not only one. Whether a slavery or a feudal system followed the disappearance of primitive communal society depended on the particular circumstances.
Nevertheless, the quotations cited by Tong from Marx are of questionable relevance to the argument. By "the same economic basis" in the above quotation Marx meant, not the "same level of productive forces", but the relations of production. This can be seen from Marx's
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w ords preceding to the second paragraph cited by Tong, which runs, "it is alw ays the direct relation of the ow ners of the conditions of production to the direct producers, which reveals the innerm ost secret, the hid d en foundation of the entire social construction". According to M arx, u p o n "the specific econom ic form , in w hich u n p aid surplus labour is p u m p ed out of the direct producers" is founded the entire fo rm atio n of the econom ic com m unity and this specific econom ic form determ ines the specific political shape (C a p ita l, vol. 3, p. 919).
As for the relationship betw een the p ro d u ctiv e forces and the relations of production, Marx believed that "at a certain stage of the developm ent, the m aterial productive forces in society come in conflict w ith the existing relations of production". This conflict led sooner or later to an epoch of social revolution. The Asiatic, the ancient, the feu d al an d the m o d ern bourgeois, form ed "so m any progressive epochs in the economic form ation of society". For Tong, on the other h a n d , different m odes of p ro d u ctio n , i.e. p rim itiv e com m unalism , slavery and feudalism , could all be based on sam e level of m aterial p ro d u ctiv e forces. This could only lead to the conclusion th at the changes of the relations of production, the changes of specific economic form s were not necessarily determ ined by the developm ent of m aterial p ro d u ctiv e forces. This, of course, is not only a challenge to Stalin's five-stage theory, but also a serious threat to historical materialism.
T ong fu rth e r a rg u e d th at the d isin te g ra tio n of p rim itiv e com m unal society could give rise both to slavery and serfdom . In oriental societies, the rem nants of the com m unal system prev en ted slavery from developing fully. Tong cited M arx's w ords to su p p o rt him self in which Marx w rote that small scale peasant agriculture and
independent handicrafts form the economic foundation of the classical com m unities after the prim itive [oriental] form of ow nership of land in com m on had d isa p p e a re d and before slav ery h a d seized on production in earnest (Capital, vol. 1, p. 367, footnote 1).
Tong explained that this sm all-scale peasant agriculture was a rem n an t of prim itive com m unal society. It w as in conflict w ith and rejected by slavery because the latter was a developed private economy. But peasant agriculture could exist in feudal society because the feudal system was in natu re also based on small-scale peasant economy. The tw o could integrate. In oriental societies, Tong argued, it w as this in teg ratio n of the feudal system w ith rem n an ts of the p rim itive com m unal system that form ed the strongest resistance to any change.17 Tong cited a passage from Marx's Capital to support his view:
The obstacles presented by the internal solidity and articulation of precaptialist, national, mode of production to the corrosive influence of commerce is strikingly shown in the intercourse of the English with India and China. The broad basis of the mode of production is here formed by the unity of small agriculture and domestic industry, to which is added in India the form of communes resting upon common ownership of land, which, by the way, was likewise the original form in China (C apital, vol. 3, p. 392).
Marx, of course, did believe that both slavery and serfdom were fu rth er d evelopm ents of the form of p ro p erty resting on the clan system (Grundrisse, p. 493). But the above two paragraphs did little to establish T ong's prop o sitio n that rem nants of prim itive com m unal society co-existed w ith feudalism in the East. In the first of the above
17 Tong, " A Discussion of the Law", p. 6, "A Discussion with A Soviet Sinologist ", op. cit., p. 17.
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two paragraphs Tong omitted a passage in which Marx suggested that peasant agriculture on a small scale and the production of independent artisans "formed the basis of the feudal mode of production, and after the dissolution of that system, continue side by side with the capitalist mode, also form the economic foundation of the classical communities at their best, after the [oriental] primitive form of ownership of land in com m on had disappeared" (Capital, vol, 1, p. 367, emphasis mine— Hong). There is no indication that Marx believed that the small peasants economy was the remnant of primitive communal society or that of primitive oriental communal society. On the contrary, this small scale peasant agriculture, according to Marx, was a result of the disappearance of the primitive oriental system of common ownership of land and existed throughout the entire history of human beings.
In the second paragraph, Marx was not talking about the remnants of primitive communal society and their co-existence with feudal systems in general. He was talking about the AMP and its resistance to foreign influence.
Tong correctly denied the existence of a universal slavery. But the purpose of this denial was not to support the existence of an independent Asiatic social formation but to prove that in China
feudalism grew directly from the ruins of primitive communal society. He did not distinguish this "feudalism" from the Chinese f e n g j i a n
system. On the contrary, Tong seemed to believe that feudalism was a general phenomenon in the ancient orient around the 10th century B.C., just as slavery was emerging in ancient Greece and Rome.18
A ccording to Tong, how ever, feudalism in C hina's W estern Zhou D ynasty was a "p rem atu re" or "prim itive" feudalism w hich was characterized by state ow nership of land. Slave labour prevailed in the period betw een the W arring States and the H an Dynasty. But slavery did not constitute the dom inant form of production in society. N one of these societies, the W arring States, the Qin and the H an, could be defined as slave-ow ning societies.19