53 The resolution claimed that the difference between European countries and China
on the question of land struggle lay in the fact that in Europe the conflict was between petty bourgeois private land owners [xiao zhichan jieji de shiyou tudil and the medieval landlord economy [zhongshiji dizhu jingji] while in China it was between millions of landless and small peasants and the class that occupied land exclusively (big and middle land owners). See "Zhongguo gongchandang di liu ci quangong daibiao dahui de jueyi an" [Resolutions of the Sixth National Congress of the CPC], 9 July 1928. in CPCHM, p. 32.
socio-econom ic system an d the ag ricu ltu ral econom y as being in transition from the AMP to capitalism. The Resolution stated that the basic featu res p o stu la te d by the AMP w ere: absence of p riv ate o w n ersh ip in land, large-scale social projects carried o u t u n d er the guidance of the state and the stable existence of a com m unal system. All these features, especially the first one, according to the Resolution, w ere contrary to fact, to C hina's actual situation (p. 31).
By a d o p tin g the term the "previous state feudal system ", the Resolution connected its u n d erstan d in g of the Chinese feudal system w ith the system in the Zhou D ynasty w here "all land u n d er heaven belonged to the king" rather than w ith the m ore complex situation of E u ro p e a n feu d alism . The R eso lu tio n d id n o t d is tin g u is h this "p rev io u s state feudal system " from the later "p riv ate lan d lo rd o w n e rsh ip " . By a d o p tin g the S talin ist term "th e re m n a n ts of feudalism ", the Resolution seemed to consider pre-O pium W ar China as a feudal society in European sense.
D espite their attitude tow ard the question of the AMP and their different understandings of the nature of the Chinese society, both the D raft an d the R esolution show ed no su b stan tial difference on the question of the socialist revolution in China. Both claim ed th at the in v asio n of im p erialist econom y d am ag ed the C hinese trad itio n al a g ra ria n econom y (w h eth er co n sid ered as AMP or feudal) an d aggravated social and economic problem s in the Chinese countryside. The only solution, both believed, was a socialist-oriented revolution, directed against the landlord, w arlord, the old bureaucracy, commercial and u surer capital and imperialism. Both believed in the necessity for a proletariat-peasant union in the struggle for socialism. Criticism of the
Chapter 2, the Comintern, the CPC and the AMP 77
use of the concept of the AMP in the D raft by the Sixth N ational C ongress R esolution w as th erefo re not b ased on serio u s policy differences, b u t influenced by the internal struggle of the Com intern. In the h isto ry of the CPC, the R esolution of the Sixth N ational C ongress functions as a sentence of im prisonm ent, if not a death sentence, on the application of the theory of the AMP to Chinese history. From Decem ber 1927, w hen the AMP was first im ported into the Party's dictionary, to July 1928, w hen the term was finally rejected, the dom inance of the AMP explanation of the C hinese revolution w ithin the CPC lasted only seven m onths before the term once again disappeared from the Party's political vocabulary.
The su rre n d e r of the C hinese Aziatchiki to Stalinism an d the "norm alization" of C hinese "feudalism " pro d u ced m any theoretical problem s for the Party and its M arxist interpretation of the Chinese history and society. In a rep o rt to the Sixth W orld C ongress of the C om intern the Party's general secretary, Qu Qiubai, seemed reluctant to deny com pletely the existence of the AMP in C hinese history and adm itted the need for a careful study of the question of the AMP. But Q u also said, p e rh a p s u n d e r p ressu re from the C om intern, since politically C hina h ad no m onarchy and econom ically p riv ate land o w n e rsh ip h a d a p p e a re d long ago, the o ld A siatic g o v ern m en t therefore no longer existed. It was w rong to claim that feudalism in China had been replaced by the AMP.54
54 See "Sitelahoufu zuo guanyu zhimindi he banzhimindi guojia de geming yundong