PlljAXf {Jaipur StHt<‘'»
REVOLUTION
AND
COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
BY
M. N. ROY
RENAISSANCE PUBLISHERS CALCUTTA
Published by B, N Banerjka, fo) RenaiSvsance Publishers, 15, Baiikim Chalterjee Street, Calcutta
First Impr^fbu, June, 1946 Coj^tght reserved.
printed by P. C. Ray at Sri Gouranga Press, 5, Chintamani Das Lane, Calcutta.
PREFACE
This book was written as far back as in 1930. It was published in German in the following year. Before the arrangement for the publication of the English edition was complete, I left Europe for India. Scon afterwards, I was arresicd and spent six years in prison. UjX)n my release at the end of 1936, I iCieived pressing requests from different cjuarrcrs to arrange for the publication of the English edition, because the development of events in China, in the meantime, had added importance to the book. But the preoccupations of an active political life prevented me from devoting the necessary time and attention to the matter. During the years of my imprisonment, a part of the manuscript had been lost. The rest was scattered in several places. I had to collect the parts and complete the manus- cript by translating several chapters from the German text. For all these reasons, the book could not be published as soon as generally desired and as I myself wished.
Ever since 1922, I had been closely connected with the political movement in China. I contributed to the formulation of the policy of the Communists joining the Kuo Min Tang with the purpose of promoting the cause of the outstanding bourgeois democratic revolution. Later on, in application, the policy degenerated into opportunist deviations. When, at the end of 1925, the Kuo Min Tang leaders openly began the preparation for the eventual betrayal of the revolution, the Communist Party of China and those directing its policy on the spot failed to press for a bold approach to the social problems on the pretext of maintaining the united anti-imperialist front. It was on my initiative that the Communist International directed a correct application of the policy of developing the bourgeois democratic revolution in the teeth of the opposition of the
vi
boitrgeoisie, if necessary. I went to China at the end of 1926 as the representative of the Communist International. I was there until the middle of 1927, that is, throughout the great crisis of the Chinese Revolution. A brief account of that period has already been pubh<;hed in “My Experience in China” The same story is told in greater detail in the closing chapters of this book. Upon ray return to Moscow, all the documents (stenographic reports of the proceedings of the Fifth Congress of the Ccmimunist Patty of China, of all the meetings of its Central Committee during the period of my stay in China, etc.) were published in a book called “The Chinese Revolution”. It was published in Russian by the State Publishing Department. The closing chapters of this book are based on those official documents. My first book. “The Chinese Revolution”, was never published in other languages. On request from Moscow, I sent the manuscript back from Berlin.
Many things hapf»ened in China since this book had been written. A new volume must be written to deal with those events extensively. As those events have borne out my contention about the collapse of 1927, and have corroborated my views about the inevitable lines of development of the Chinese Revolution, I did not wish to add anything to this book, so that its character as a historical document is in no way aftected. Nevertheless, a history of the Chinese Revolution appearing today would be incomplete if it did not touch the events during the period since this book was written. Moreover, the lessons of the experitettce made in China during those eventful years are not only of great theoretical value, but are also of practical importance iat us in India. Therefore, I have added the last two chaptere covetit^ those events briefly.
The book, however, is more than a history of the revohitionary movement in contcoiporary China. It gives the btoad outlines of the social history ^ China ffcmt tSie diliai deys. a number d social ppcMam, wlthii a|i{iear m he typically Chinese, are theoitt^ly treated^ Ih
vii
-30, 1 had to make some investigations into the causes what is generally known as civilisation. The investigations have ■©tiabled me to make some original theoretical contribution to the science of history. Personally, I consider that to be the real merit of the work. I have not yet had the time to follow up the investigation in greater detail. Unfortunately, an active jjolitical worker is debarred from such purely scientific work. I hope that my sugg^tions will stimulate others to undertake the greater work Svhich •! may not be able to do.
# # # #
The publication of the book was again delayed by the •outbreak of the war. Apart from the difficulty of making proper printing arrangement and the high cost of paper, there were other, more serious, considerations. Nationalist China became one of the United Nations in the war; Chiang Kai-shek was boosted as one of the top leaders of the anti- Axis alliance. This book narrates the record of both, and it is not at all a complimentary record. Its publication might create diplomatic difficulties; it might have been even proscribed as prejudicial to war efforts. I could not send it out to a publisher abroad without submitting the manuscript to the censorship of the official exjjert on Chinese affairs, and he was entitled to suppress it if he found it objectionable. I did not take the almost sure risk.
Eventually, the Chinese bubble burst, as it was bound ta Foreign journalists began to tell truths about nationalist 'China and its hero, instead of the previous flowery fictions. There was no longer any political reasoit to hold up the publication of this book, which predicted sixteen years ago <xactiy wluit has been happening ever since in nationalist m well as the socaUed Communut China.
Even now, 1 do not whh to add anything to the book, lOUt* do the subsequent events warrant any revision of the
views expressed in 1930, and then in 1939, when the last two chapters were added. I have only recorded in a short epilogue some facts about the present developments in China which drive home the lesson set forth in the last chapter.
Dehradun March 31st, 1946.
M. N. ROY
CONTENTS
Page
Preface ... ... ... v — viii
iNTRODUCnON ... ... ... ... 1
Chapters
I. — The Foundation of Chinese Society ... 13
II. — The Structure of Chinese Society ... 49
III. — The National Economy of China ... 85
IV. — Foreign Aggression ... ... 100
V. — The Taiping Revolt ... ... 129
VI. — The Reform Movement ... ... 166
VII. — Tht Boxer Uprising ... ... 188
VIII. — The Passing of the Manchus ... 216
IX. — The Rise AND Fall of the Republic ... 224
X. — Sun Yat-Sen and His Three Principles ... 251
XI. — The Kuo Min Tang ... ... 296
XII. — The Establishment of the Nationalist
Government ... ... ... 339
XIII. — The Thirtieth of May, 1925 ... 358
XIV. — “Red” Canton ... ... ... 368
XV. — The North Expedition ... ... 403
XVI. — The Kuo Min Tang Splits ... ... 420
XVII. — The Great Crisis ... ... 443
XVIII. — On the Road to Peking ... ... 466
XIX. — The Counter-Revolution ... ... 490
XX. — The Communist Party ... ... 529
XXL — The Struggle for Power ... ... 575
XXII. — ^An Experiment ... .... ... 613
XXIII.— The Lesson ... ... ... 639
Epilogue ... ... ... ... 660
Bibuography ... ... ... 673
Index ... ... ... ... 675
INTRODUCTION
This is not a treatise on Sinology. The very title of the book makes that evident. Nevertheless, a general in- vestigation in the history of the country from the earliest days is necessary in order to place in a proper perspective the social and political problems of contemporary China, a treatment of which is the subject matter of the book. The book assumes a scientific character inasmuch as a number of basic social and political problems are dealt with theoreti- cally, so that they could be treated intelligently in their peculiar Chinese appearance. Much confusion has been caused, for example, on the question of Feudalism, as well as by the mechanical application of what Marx called the “Asiatic mode of production*', as an inflexible formula.
If bourgeois Sinology is a sterile controversy among pedants, Marxian investigation of the history of China has hardly begun. What little Marx and Engels themselves wrote about China was based upon very insufficient material, and therefore cannot be accepted as the last word on the subject. Still, mechanical quotations from the fragmentary writings of the founders of scientific Socialism have until now been the point of departure of Marxist Sinology. Obviously, with such a method, which is hardly Marxist, not much light can be thrown upon the dark corners in the history of the Chinese society. Instead of setting up ill- conceived, unfounded theories as the last word in Marxian Sinology, true Marxists should do the spade-work. Materials should be collected and systematised on the lines of Marxian methodology.
Not a few Marxian Sinologues are still over awed by the imposing learnedness of bourgeois Sinolpgy. While combating it apparently, they nevertheless remain bound to its unscientific methodology. How the mist of bourgeois Sinolc^ still hangs over the minds of many Marxian Sinolc^^ues, is evidenced by the habit of seizing upon
2 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
phenomena like the age-long isolation and the system of artificial irrigation as the keys to the Chinese puzzle. To describe these historical phenomena and to point out what influence they had on the evolution of Chinese society, do not bring us to the root of the problems. It is necessary to ascertain how those peculiar phenomena came into existence.
In the opening chapters of this book, an attempt has been made to ascertain the cause of the specific features in the social organism of China. This has been done, on the one hand, disregarding the pedantry^ of bourgeois Sinology and, on the other hand, discarding the empiricism of the so-called Marxist experts. Not being a treatise on Sinology, this book does not concern itself with an examination ol the different theories set up regarding the history of China. Here the subject is approached positively. For the purpose of the book, it is immaterial whether Confucius lived six hundred years or eight hundred years before Christ ; whether his teachings are codified in five books or nine books ; whether he was the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance of one of the innumerable Clan-States of ancient China. Besides, there is no established authority regarding these and other chronological details. It is possible to state the fundamental principles of Confucianism without entering into the hair-splitting scholasticism of bourgeois Sinology. That has been done without profuse references to, and long quotations from, the so-called standard works on China. The author has no desire to impose the reader with a show of vast learning.
Then, my object is not to study Confucianisrn or Taoism or any other school of thought in ancient China, as such. Marxism does not allow that. The basic principles of the conflicting schools have been ascertained and stated in brief only as evidence of the fierce class antagonism that grew out of the dissolution of the tribal society. The next Step is to investigate what mode of production caused that antagonism. That brings us to the decisive factw of the
INTRODUCTION
3
process, namely, endowments of nature at the disposal of the ancient Chinese.
In establishing the deductions, I have referred to Morgan alone as the authority. That does not imply that there is no other authority for the deduction. Had I been engaged in a purely technical scientific investigation, I could call upon Waitz, Schweinfurth, Ratzel, Eyre, Stanley, Burton and others for evidence in support of my view. But here again, I have not follow ed the usual method of measuring unknown regions with the yard-stick of estab- lished theories. In course of an objective investigation, facts have been discovered, and deductions drawn from them. Besides, the theory that at the dawn of civilisation the mode of production, consequently the division of labour, and the entire course of social evolution, is primarily determined by the endowments of nature, constitutes the corner-stone of Historical Materialism. Marx formulated the theory ; Engels elaborated it on the basis of Morgan’s discovery of the clan-type of society. Later, in elucidating the fundamental principles of Marxism, Plekhanov main- tained it with the aid of further knowledge, subsequently acquired, about ancient society. Answering the question — “By what is this economic structure itself determined?” — Plekhanov wrote: "Marx’s answer reduces the whole problem of the development of economic structure to the problem of the causes that determined the evolution of the productive forces of society. In this latter form, the problem is primarily solved with reference to the nature of the greographical environments.” (“Fundamental Problems o£ Marxism”, page 32).
A clear knowledge of the natural con4itions and forces of production available to the ancient Chinese alone can enable us to discover the fundamental laws of social evolution behind the peculiarities in the history of the country. Approached with that knowledge, all the social and political peculiarities in the past, and the problems of the present, cease to be baffling.
4 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CIUNA
Owing to their empirical approach to the problem, experts on China, calling themselves Marxists, have set up and pulled down all sorts of theories about the structure of Chinese society, not only of the past, but even of to-day. The greatest confusion has been created by the controversy about the existence of Feudalism in China. To clear this confusion, it is necessary to have a definition of Feudalism. It would be futile to enter into a dispute over a thing which remains an abstract conception. Therefore, it is necessary to ascertain the essence of the social relation, traditionally called Feudalism, in order to have a standard for the investigation of the evolution of Chinese society.
Then again, it is not the term Feudalism that is decisive. The main thing is the relation of property in land as the principal means of social production. The development of the form of landownership, usually known as feudal, was determined by the conditions of pro- duction in the preceding period. Those conditions, in their turn, were different in different parts of the world, owing to the variety of geographical environments and natural gifts. Therefore, the private property in land and the class relation based upon it, could not possibly be realised in an uniform appearance throughout the world. By studying the history of China, we discover that social relations constituting the essence of Feudalism did develop in that country, though not under forms generally recognised as feudal.
If the structure of the contemporary Chinese society contains no element of Feudalism, then, either this has been destroyed, or did not ever exist. It has not been destroyed, because the bouigeois revolution, which ordinarily performs that historic task, has not yet been completed in China. So, it follows that Feudalism never existed in China. What happened, then, when the tribal social order decomposed? The dissolution of primitive Communism inevitably leads to the creation of private property in the means prodimtitm ; and in that period of antiquity, land is the main means
INTRODUCTION
5
of production. The class relation based upon the pre- capitalist private property in land, no matter what form it assumes, is the essence of the feudal social order. A convenient way out of the dilemma is found in a mechanical quoution from Marx. A sentence from the Introduction to “The Critique of Political Economy” serves the purpose. The passage quoted is: “In broad outlines, the Asiatic, antique, feudal and modern capitalist modes of production can be depicted as the progressive epochs in the economic formation of society.” Long before social conditions in the Oriental countries were subjected to Marxist examination, Plekhanov theoretically dealt with the question of the “.Asiatic mode of production” and Plekhanov’s authority as a Marxian theorist has survived his political debacle. According to him, upon Morgan’s discovery of the cl^n-type of social oiganisation, “Marx modified his views as to the relation between the classical method of production and the Asiatic method.” (“Fundamental Problems of Marxism”, page 50). If the sentence in the Introduction to the “Critique of Political Economy” contains the conclusive opinion of Marx, then, “Asiatic mode of production”, being a stage earlier than the antique mode of production, must be coincident with primitive Communism. For, the antique society grew out of the dissolution of the primitive Communist tribal order. Then, the “Asiatic mode” must eventually develop into the antique mode of production. But when later on we find Marx explaining what he meant by the “Asiatic mode of production”, it appears to be a stage of social evolution not only very far away from primitive Communism, but well above the level of antique production. It is based not only upon private property in land, but also in other means of production created by man, and even partially upon primitive capitalist production.
In that stage, the form of private property in land which, according to Marx, “is quite suitable for becoming the basis of stationary condititms of society, such as we see in Asia” is realised no longer in labour-rent, but in Uie rent
6 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
in kind. Further, “in this form of rent, it is by no means necessary that rent in kind, which represents surplus labour, should fully exhaust the entire surplus labour of the rural family. Compared to labour-rent, the producer has rather more elbow room to gain time for some surplus labour whose product shall belong to himself. This type of social relation characterises the period of transition from the feudal to the capitalist mode of production. Under it, the peasant outgrows legal serfdom, labour-rent being the classical expression of feudal relation ; but the entire process of his production still takes place under social relations primarily determined by the pre-capitalist ownership of land. At the same time, a part of the proceeds of his labour, performed over and above for the production of his indispensable meap>' of subsistence, tends to remain in his possession. That is, he begins to acquire private property, and thus there grows the possibility that the direct producer may acquire the means to exploit other labourers.”
The quotations in the above paragraph are all from “Capital", Volume III (American edition, page 924). Instead of quoting more extensively, I should refer the reader to the entire Section III on “Rent in Kind”.
At the time of writing the Introduction to “The Critique of Political Economy”, Marx obviously meant something different by the “Asiatic mode of production”. Otherwise, the gradation of the epochs of social progress, as stated then, would contradict his entire theory of Historical Materialism. Evidently, what he had in mind was the theocratic type of antique social order as obtained in Egypt and Babylon. Having at that time not sufficient knowledge about the ancient history of other Oriental countries, Marx tended to think that the theocratic type was common to them all. But the discovery of. the clan-type of ancient society proved that the Asiatic was not a distinct stage of social evolution preceding the antique ; that both of them grew out the dissolution of the clan social order, and were two parallel types. On this, Plekhanov writes: "Each
INTRODUCTION
7
of these two types of economic organisation appeared as the outcome of an increase in the forces of production, an increase which had occurred within the social organisation based upon the clan system, and ultimately led to the break- up of this organisation. If the two types, the classical and the Oriental, respectively, differred greatly each from the other, this was because, in both the respective cases, the development was influenced by the geographical environ- ments.” (“Fundamental Problems oi Marxism”, page 51).
This basic principle of Historical Materialism is stated also in the Introduction to “The Critique of Political Fxonomy”. “No type of social structure ever perishes until there have been developed all the productive forces for which it has room ; and new and higher forces of produc- tion never appear on the scene until the material conditions of existence requisite for their development have matured within the womb of the old society.”
The ancient Babylonian and Egyptian society perished ; but that was not the case in China or India. A type of social organisation perishes only when all the productive forces inherent in it are exhausted without creating the germs of a new social order. This algebra of Marxism permits the deduction that the ancient social order in China and India was essentially different from that in Egypt and Babylon ; in other words, there is no such thing as an uniform type of Asiatic mode of production antecedent to the antique. It is a historical fact that ancient society in China and India did not go the same way as in Egypt and Babylon. It could not remain stationary for ages without perishing. What, then, happened to it?
Being only a parallel type of antique social order, it was bound to attain the next higher stt^e — ^Feudalism. Here ^ain, historical causes, geographical environments and natural conditions of production affected the progress and gave distinct appearances to the new social relations which, nevertheless, were essentially feudal. Otherwise, the monistic principle of Historic Materialism would be
^ REVOLUTION AND COUNTEK-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
disproved, and the Marxian perspective of history, that Communism is the common ^stiny the human race, would be untenable.
Those who dispute the existence of Feudalism in China base themselves on another fragmentary quotation from Marx. Dealing with the creation of private property in land as the condition for ground-rent, Marx writes: “Into Asia, it (the legal conception of free property in land) has been imported by Europeans in but a few places." (“Capital”, Volume III, page 723). On the authority of this single sentence, it is maintained that private property in land never existed in China, and in the absence of this basic condition, there could not subsist any feudal relation. Read in its full context, the sentence, howevei*. does not provide such a conclusive authority. Firstly, in the pre- ceding sentence, two distinct type^ of private property in land are mentioned: one growing out of the dissolution of (he organic order of society, and the other out of the capitalist production. It is not clear from the text whether, in connection with Asia, Marx meant private property in land generally, or the latter type. Most probably, he meant the latter type ; for, the reference is made in connection with the treatment of the process of the development of capitalist ground-rent. Secondly, postulating that the disso- lution of the organic order of society is a condition for the growth of the legal conception of private property in land, Marx could not logically assert that this growth did not take place in Asia until the advent of the Europeans. For, there the oiganic order of society had broken down, if not completely, long before the Europeans came. He very likely meant that the legal conception of capitalist private property in land was imported by the Europeans into Asia. Thirdly, later on, in the same treatise, he writes: “The owner (of land) may be the individud representing the community, as in Asia.” So, on the authority of Marx, the absence of private property in land in China cannot be proved. Private property in land in a specific form did
INTOODUCnON
9
«xi8t in China. It was not capitalist poverty. Con- .sequently, the social relations resulting from it wert' essentially feudal.
The confusion arises from the fact that pre-capitaligi ownership of land in China did not assume the form usually labelled as feudal. The decisive factor, however, is not the outward form, but the underlying relation of classes. Marx holds that the Asiatic form of landownership does not essentially differ from the classical feudal system under which “this private ownership in land may be merely accessory to the ownership of the person of the direct pro- ^ducers by some individual.” (“Capital”, Vol. Ill, page 743). There is no essential difference, because in both the cases private property in land realises itself in pre-capitalist rent absorbing practically the entire surplus labour of the producer, who may or may not be bound legally by the conditions of serfdom. Describing the conditions, under which peasants appear to cultivate the soil as “free pro- •ducers”, that is, not legally in the state of serfdom, as in China, Marx concludes: “Under such conditions, the sur- plus labour of the nominal owners of the land cannot be filched from them by any economic measures, but must be forced from them by other measures, whatever may be the form assumed by them.” (“Capital”, Volume III, page 918).
Finally, one more quotation from Marx conclusively proves that the system of pre-capitalist relation of property in land in China is essentially feudal. “If the direct producers are not under the sovereignty of a private land- lord, but rather under that of a State which stands over theiH as their direct landlord and sovereign, then, rent and taxes coincide . . . Under these circumstances, the subject need not be politically or economically under any harder pressure than that common to all subjection to that State. The State is then the supreme landlord. The sovereignty consists here in the ownership of land concentrated on a national scale. But, on the other hand, no private ownership .
10 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
of land exists, although there is both private and common possession and use of land.” (“Capital”, Vol. Ill, page 918).
Having cleared away these theoretical questions, the book ceases to be scientific, except as history. The principal thesis is political. It is a study of the social character and perspective of the national revolution in China. The study, however, transcends the limits of one single countryr and proceeds to ascertain the tactical and oiganisational principles of the revolutionary movements in the colonial countries generally in the light of the lessons learned in China. Nor is this of a detached academic nature. It is the result of long revolutionary political activities in my own country as well as in China. As a matter of fact, I have been associated with the revolutionary movement in the entire colonial world, having for years played a leading role in the activities of the Communist International in that sphere. Even before the foundation of the Communist International, I had visited China, the Dutch Indies, the Philippines and Mexico, and took part in the revolutionary movements in those countries.
The chapters dealing with the contemporary history of China are written on the basis of personal knowledge and experience. 1 have had personal contact with most of the leading figures of contemporary China. Sun Yat-sen I met already in 1916, and the criticism of his earlier social and political views is largely based upon personal acquaintance. In the opening months of 1927, when the national revolu- tion reached its critical stage, I was in China as the represen- tative of the Communist International. Personal interest, however, has not been permitted to mar the objectivity of the study. How far I have succeeded in this, will be judged by the reader. For example, Borodin is an old personal friend of mine, and I still cherish him as such ; yet, he comes in for unsparing criticism. On the other tumd, severe condemnation of the former leader of the Communist Finrty of China, Chen Tu>hsiu, for the fatal tactical mlMakes coin-
INTRODUCTION
11
l
mitted, does not prevent me from appreciating his r61e as the leading ideologist of the Chinese Revolution.
The concluding chapter*, added at the last moment, brings the history up to date. The political prognosis and deductions, however, are contained in the preceding chapters which were written last year. Subsequent events have proved their correctness, showing that I have succeeded in the task undertaken, namely, to draw the lessons of the Chinese Revolution.
Berlin, July 1930.
M. N. Roy.
* The reference ie to Chapter X3CI. Two more chapters and an BpilOgne have been added sobseqaentl}'.
CHAPTER I
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
The present has its roots struck deep in the past. What exists to-day has evolved out of the life of yesterday, and of the innunierable days preceding, Tlie present can be correctly understood and the future clearly visualised, there- fore, only with the aid of a proper appreciation of the historical background.
The history of China vanishes in the dark ages. Side by side with the Mediterranean and Semitic races, the Chinese entered the early stages of human progress thousands of years ago, China is generally considered to be the land of a very old civilisation. But in course of time, the people inheriting the Semitic and the Mediterranean cultures strode ahead to build the modern civilisation on the basis of the ancient heritage, while the Chinese failed to keep pace. Mediaeval, even antique, social relations still subsist in con- temporary China. Modern civilisation has touched her but on the surface, causing more evil than good to her teeming millions. It is not an unusual phenomenon that peoples having reached a comparatively high stage of progress in antiquity entirely disappeared from existence. But China did not accompany Babylon and ancient Egypt into the obli- vion. She struggled ahead, but was left a long way behind by others who appeared on the scene later. In view of that curious caprice of history, China did not receive proper attention in the study of human evolution except as a special case, difficult to understand ; and modern China has become a baffling problem for many. It is a ‘'Chinese Puzzle” which appears to defy the established laws of social progress. But there is no puzzle in history which cannot be solved with the aid of the modem method of treating historical problems as problems of science, approaching them
14 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
with the assumption that there is some cause for each historical phenomenon, and that it can be discovered.
The causes for the prolonged stagnation of the Chinese society are to be found in the conditions under which its foundation was laid, thousands of years ago. The fact that antique China survived destruction indicates that she possessed a vitality altogether lacking in the case of the Babylonians, Egyptians and the barbarians of the Western Hemisphere. But the vitality at the same time was not great enough to overcome completely the opposing forces of dissolution, as was the case with the Mediterranean and Semitic races.
A scientific examination of the history of China shows that there is nothing in it which is essentially different from the history of any other civilisation. Whatever distinction appears to be there is rather of quantity than of quality. The progress has been slower in China than in the countries of the modern civilisation. The historians who find deep- rooted peculiarities in the Chinese civilisation, do so with a motive. It is to prove that, owing to her innate peculiarities, China is not able to absorb the conquests of modem civilisation; that she is constitutionally incapable of adopt- ing modern economic and political institutions; and that, therefore, she must remain a legitimate prey for the standard-bearers of modem civilisation. That is not a scientific reading of history.
On the other hand, many of the Chinese themselves also believe in, and preach, the cult of “special genius”. Not able to understand the causes for the deplorable stagnation of their national life, they make a virtue out of it. Afraid of the spectre of racial inferiority, they idealise the past which has brought about the present misery. But the backward- ness of their country is a fact. It cannot be removed by glorifying its causes. On the contrary, the causes must be boldly discovered and ruthlc»ly extirpated. The lingering faidi in the in&llibility and etemalness of their ancient odmie, on the part of even those Chinese who desire to
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
15
see their country progress on the road of modem civilisation, renders China a baffling problem to grasp. Indeed, this ideological contradiction is a part of the problem.
After centuries of a fossilised existence, old China is at last disappearing, to make room for a new. The mediaeval structure of society, sanctified by the teachings of Confucius and Mencius, has been undermined, though slowly, by the rise of new forces and under the impact of the modern civilisation and culture from abroad. It is tottering. But the ideology of new China in the throes of rebirth can no longer be the same as of the modern civilisa- tion ushered in by the Renaissance in Europe. The ideology of the centuries-belated Chinese Renaissance can- not be that which no longer breathes the spirit of a rising civilisation, but seeks to galvanise a decayed order of society. Hence the ideologists of Chinese nationalism look wistfull) back to the Golden Age, just when the Chinese people are engaged in a gigantic struggle for creating a social order higher than capitalist civilisation. Sun Yat-sen formulated his "Three People’s Principles”, and the “Five-Power Con- stitution” of the new State on the basis of the political philosophy of Confucius and Mencius. The ideologists of Chinese nationalism find the “Foundation of Modern China” in the debris of antiquity.
It is true that the present has its roots struck deep in the past, and the builders of the future can draw inspiration from the past ; but the tree grows out of the seed only by destroying it. If the seed is lovingly preserved for what it potentially contains, its pregnancy becomes sterile — the tree never blossoms.
To conjure up the past is not a Chinese peculiarity. The ideological pioneers of the European bourgeoisie, while heralding the rise of a new social order, harked back to the p^n culture of ancient Greece. Indeed, the bourgeois social order was reared upon the twin pillars of the Hellenic philosophy and Roman Law. The philosophers of ancient Greece and, later, the law-givers of Rome were the ideo-
16 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
legists of a revolution which shifted the basis of hmoan society from primitive communism to private property. And bourgeois society, the high-watermark of human progress based on private property, was born with the rich heritage of the Greek and Roman cultures. Not only the men of the Renaissance, but even the rationalist thinkers of the eighteenth century invoked a legendary “Golden Age” while preaching the doctrine of social contract, as the cardinal principle of the ideology of a new order, on the authority of the philosophers of ancient Greece. Revolting against the authority of the Roman Church, Martin Luther masqueraded as the reincarnation of the very founder of that institution. The great French Revolution destroyed feudal aristocracy and monarchist absolutism : yet, its leaders believed that they were engaged in the task of creating a state on the model of the Roman Republic which had laid the foundation of the very social institutions they were abolishing. As a matter of fact, the bourgeoisie have always conjured up the past as the authority for their revolutionary thoughts liquidating old traditions and heralding new social relations.* Themselves afraid of the great poten- tiality of the revolution they were advocating, they invoked the authority of the dead past for justifying their action.
If the European middle class, when they were still a revolutionary factor, looked to the past for inspiration, it is no wonder that the Chinese middle class should do the same now that their class throughout the world have become a bulwark of reaction. The teachings of the Greek philo- sophers, more than two thousand years after their time, provided the basis for the ideology of the bourgeois social order in Europe. In China, Confucius and his disciples, like their Greek contemporaries, also for the first time
’ "At the very time when men appear engaged in revolutumiamg things and themselves, in bringing about what never was before, at sndi veiy epochs of revolntiottary crisis do they anxionsly confnre up into flmir service the spirits of the past.’’— Karl Marx, '‘*rhe l^ghteenth Bramalre Louis Bont^Mute".
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
17
recc^ised the necessity of the political organisation of society and enunciated the rudimentary laws for governing social relations. But their teachings did not inspire subse- quent thinkers to herald the rise of a higher social order. The seeds of Renaissance and of the resulting spiritual progress of Europe were in the ancient culture of Greece. Confucianism was not so happily pregnant. The misfortune was due not to any innate inferiority of the Chinese mind, but to the material conditions under which the foundation of Chinese culture was laid. The responsibility for the deplorable social stagnation of China is usually laid at the door of the Confucian culture. But the correct interpreta- tion of history should be to reverse the relation. Having entered the first stages of civilisation together with the fore-runners of the modern European nations, the Chinese people, nevertheless, lagged behind in centuries of social stagnation, because of the defectiveness of the material basis of their civilisation. The social stagnation, caused by defective endowments of nature, made it possible that the progressive elements in the Confucian culture were over- come by the conservative.
Originally, Chinese culture did not differ essentially from the contemporary Greek or Indian culture. In either case, the philosophical foundation was the ideology of human society outgrowing tribal organisation, based upon blood relations, and striving towards political institutions governed by the relation of private property. The subse- quent growth of human culture was the result of the evolution of private property. The evolution of private property, in its turn, was caused by the development of the means of production. The progressive perfeaion of tools in the hands of man — the development' of the means of production — again is determined by physical conditions. Only in the higher stages of civilisation, man invents power- ful tools which can overcome elemental conditions. In the primitive stt^s, production is still largely governed by the endowment of nature, namely, the flora and fautra of the 2
18 REVOLUTION ANO COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
country, geographical environments, animal resources, supply of labour, etc.
The boundary between barbarism and civilisation is difficult to indicate. Indeed, there exists no definite dividing line. The germ of ciiilisation was in barbarism, and remnants of the latter persisted for a long time while the former developed. The factor tliat clearly distinguishes civilised society from barbarism is the growth of private property. It revolutionises production — its mode and means, and therefore marks the beginning of a new stage of human evolution. The growth of private property begins only after man has acquired the knowledge of making land bear fruit. So the cultivation of the soil for producing food can be reckoned as the first sign of civilisation. A group of human beings begin to organise themselves terri- torially and politically only after they have reached the stage of evolution in which they get their livelihood mainly by the cultivation of the earth. In that stage, man ceases to subsist, as in the preceding stages of savagery and barba- rism, almost entirely by his own physical effort. For the cultivation of the soil he supplements his labour by employing animals which previously he killed to consume. The transformation of animal from an article of consump- tion into the means of production is a land-mark in the process of social evolution. It lays the foundation of private property. By harnessing animal energy to supple- ment his labour in the production of the means of subsistence, man outgrows barbarism and enters the stage of civilisation.®
From the remotest days of history, the inhabitants of China got their subsistence by cultivating the land. But the country was very poor in such animals as could be domesticated to become means of production.
Ha?e is the weak spot in the foundation of Chinese
® "Ttte difiereiitiati<m of the Semitic and Aryan families from the mass of barbarians seems to have commenced with the domestication of animals.”— l/ewis Morgan, “Ancient Society”, p. 22.
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
19^
society. The Chinese people entered the earlier stages of civilisation without possessing precisely that gift of nature which, in that period, in addition to human labour, is the basic means of production.® The scarcity of cattle and horses was a decisive factor in the earlier stages of the evolution of Chinese society. Eventually, it contributed more to the prolonged stagnation of national life than any other single factor. Limiting the margin of surplus pro- duce, it obstructed the free development of private property. Defective growth of private property, in its turn, hindered the expansion of the productive forces. The mode of production consequently assumed peculiar forms, placing a specific stamp upon the whole process of social evolution for hundreds of years. Primitive cultivation of land did not develop into field agriculture, socialising human labour, first in the form of slavery, and then of serfdom in the typical European sense. Agriculture developed not exten- sively, but intensively. Instead of bringing larger and larger areas under cultivation, greater and greater amount of labour was concentrated on limited areas in order to make them bear more and more fruit for meeting the growing requirements of an expanding population. Garden culture, artificial manuring and extensive irrigation became the specific features of the Chinese mode of agricultural production, conditioned by the defective endowment of
nature.
China was not alone in the misfortune of not possessing
* ‘‘The domestic animals supplementing human muscles with animal power contributed a new factor of the highest value. In course of time, the production of iron gave the plow an iron point, and a better spade and axe. Out of these, and the previous horticulture,^ came field culture ; and with it, for the first time, unlimited subsistence. The plow drawn by animal power may be regarded as inaugurating a new art. Now for the first time came the thought of reducing the forest, and bringing wide fields under cultivation. Moreover, dense population in limited areas now became possible. Prior to field agriculture, it is not probable that half a million people were developed and held together under one government in any part of the earth. If exceptions occurred, they must have resulted from pastoral life on the plains, or from horticulture improved by irrigation, under peculiar and exceptional conditions/' (Italics are mine— Author).— Lewis Morgan, “Ancient Society", p. 26.
20 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
cattle and horse in the earlier stages of social evolution. The native races (rf America also suffered from the same misfortune. Consequently, having attained a well-advanced stage of barbarism, they perished.* Animals have more than once settled the fate of entire peoples. The possession of horses, in addition to fire-arms, was the decisive technical factor in the conquest of Mexico and Peru by the Spaniards.
The roots of the proverbial conservatism of the Chinese people can be traced to the conditions under which they entered the first stages of early civilisation. Owing to the fact that the primitive Chinese inhabited a country, poor in animals adapted to domestication, nomadic habits did not develop in them. In the absence of animals in abun- dance, hunting and pasturage cannot become the means of subsistence of mankind. Most probably, the fish and cereal periods were contiguous in the process of social evolu- tion of ancient China. They were not separated by the early meat period in which animal becomes the means of subsistence (not yet of production) of the primitive man.
* **The American aborigines in the lower status of barbarism were in possession of horticulture one entire ethnical period earlier than the inhabitants of the eastern hemisphere. It was a consequence of the unj^ual endowments of the two hemispheres, the eastern possessing all animals adapted to domestication, save one, and a majority of cereals; while the western had only one cereal fit for cultivation. It tended to prolong the older period of barbarism in the former, to shorten it in the latter; and with the advantage of condition in this period in favour of the American aborigines. But when the most advanced tribes in the eastern hemisphere, at the commencement of the middle-period of barbarism, had domesticated animals which gave meat and milk — ^their condition, without a knowledge of the cereals, was mudti superior to that of the American aborigines in the corresponding period, with maize and plants, but without domestic animals ....
**The absence of animals adapted to domestication in the western hemisphere and the specific differences in the cereals of the two hemis- pheres^ exercised an important infiuence upon the relative advancement of their inhabitants ... In the eastern hemisphere, the domestication of animals enabled the thrifty and industrkms to secure for themselves a permanent supply of animal food, the healthful and invigorating infiuence of which upon the race was undoubtedly remarkable. It is at least supposable riiat the Aryan and Semitic families owed their pre«emment endowments to the great scale upon which, as far back as knowledge extends, ^ey have identified thMselves with the main^ tainance in numbers of domestic animals.’*-- 1>wis Morgan, **Aneient Society”, pp. 22 and 24.
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
21
The primitive Chinese must have wandered idong the great livers flowing from the Central Asiatic mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Consequently, their main means of sub- sistence must have been fish. Later on, thanks to the flat and alluvial nature of the soil, and in the absence of any other means of subsistence (meat and milk), it was possible lor them to discover, perhaps even when other primitive human families were still leading a nomadic life, that the land could be made to bear fruit by cultivation. The knowledge that the jearth could be cultivated to bear food marks the termination of the nomadic period. The primi- tive Chinese most probably reached the stage of settled conditions without passing through the stage of great migra- tions as in the case of the Aryan and Semitic races.
Conservatism is the characteristic of any one possessing something to conserve. Agriculture creates interest in land ; as soon as man learns to cultivate it, he becomes attached to it. He settles down in a fixed region, claiming as his own the land which he can make bear him fruit. Therefore, the knowledge to secure food by cultivating the ejrth can be reckoned as the first rung in the ladder of civilisation, that is of organised society. This knowledge eliminates the necessity of consunt and continuous migra- tion in search of food and for grazing cattle. It renders possible that a large number of human beings settle down definitely in a certain region. There follows then the evolution of private property, which eventually dissolves the tribal organisation based upon blood relation, and the process of the political organisation' of society begins.
Thanks to the natural endowments of the country they inhabited originally, the ancient Chinese most probably entered the stage of settled existence earlier than any other race ; China perhaps was the home of the earliest organised human society. But the very condition which in that early epoch placed her at the van dE human progress, at the %ame time, constituted the weak spot in the founda- tion of her civilisation. The Chinese society was bom with
22 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
an organic disease, so to say ; its subsequent evolution was crippled by that original misfortune.
Similar phenomena of social evolution are found in other parts of the world as well. For example, the aboriginal races of America reached the latter stages of barbarism when the inhabitants of the eastern hemisphere had hardly emerged from savagery. While the latter had just left the primeval forests and were still wandering with their domesticated animals in search of food and pasture, the American races were well advanced in the stage of farinaceous subsistance. They had learned to produce food through the cultivation of the soil.® Presently, the barbarian of the eastern hemisphere also learned to cultivate land, and by virtue of possessing domesticated animals not only overtook hre American rival, but strode ahead to civilisation while the other stagnated, and eventually perished in the stage of barbarism which he had attained earlier. Unequal endowment of nature is the cause of such uneven progress of social evolution.
Man did not learn to domesticate animals and cultivate the soil simultaneously. Neither the one nor the other primitive conquest alone enabled him to emerge out of barbarism. The combination of both the early achieve- ments brought him at the gates of civilisation. The founda- tion of civilised society is laid as soon as man learns to harness animal energy to aid his own labour for cultivating the soil. By that achievement, he creates conditions under which, for the first tiitte in the history of his evolution, his exertions are no longer devoted exclusively to getting the means of a bare subsistence. A part of his energy is released for other purposes — to create new values, which in their turn stimulate further evolution of the means produc- tion. The possession of domesticated animals as the means of production eventually leads to the possessitm of land. The possession of land and the ability to make it bear fruit, in ever growing quantity, put an end to the habit of
* X,ewis Jforgan, "Ancteat Society”, p. 28.
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
23
migration. The ability of one man to cultivate more land than he could if he were to depend exclusively upon his own labour and that of his human dependents, creates the impetus for acquisition. The property in land, first tribal, then patriarchal, later private, evolves ; the basis of civilisa- tion is thus laid.
The use of domesticated animals for the cultivation of soil creates a surplus of human labour as a precondition for the institution of slavery — the pillar of antique civilisation. With the aid of animal power and improved tools, a diminishing number of human beings is required to pro- duce food and other elementary necessities of the entire community. Consequently, a growing number of men are thrown out of the process of necessary production, and become available for use as chattels in the primitive pro- duction of commodities. Possessing labour power in excess of what is necessary for its subsistence and reproduction, a community can employ the surplus human energy for further conquests, either of nature or of the neighbouring human communities. In that condition, slavery becomes the basis of economic progress and political expansion. The surplus human labour becomes the object of sale and purchase -by the few owning the means of production, the main item of which, in that early stage of civilisation, is land. Slavery is originally brought into existence by the displacement of human labour through the employment of animal power in the production of the necessities of the primitive society. It attains the classical form, as in Greece, the Semetic countries, and Rome, when laig[e numbers of prisoners are made in wars.
Man’s knowledge and ability to m^ke the land bear fruit did not create fully all three conditions in ancient China. The cultivation of land, by itself, is not a broad enoi^h basis for a civilised society to be built upon. It becomes so only when it represaits a mode of production in which human labour is supplemented by the employ- ment of domesticated animals. Like the American races.
24 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
the Chinese, in an earlier epoch, favoured by natural con- ditions, learned the art of cultivating land perhaps earlier than other races. That achievement represented their entrance into the initial stage of primitive civilisation, in so far as the knowledge and ability to make the land bear fruit enabled them to settle down in a definite region and consequently to lay the foundation of an organised society. But just as in the case of American barbarism, early Chinese civilisation was presently handicapped by the very same natural conditions which had accelerated its process in an earlier period. In the absence of domesticated animals, particularly cattle, in ancient China, agriculture did not release sufficient human labour from the process of necessary production. The same cause obstructed the evolution of private property in land. The evolution of property began to stagnate in the stage of patriarchal ownership ; for, by his own labour alone and with the very primitive tool of that period, one man could hardly get his subsistence by culti- vating land. Joint labour was an indispensable necessity.
Insufficient impetus for the early accumulation of land seriously affected the growth of slavery, and later on, of serfdom. Human labour not having been displaced in a sufficient quantity from the process of necessary production, the foundation of the system of slavery, as a distinct mode of production, was not laid. As conditions were not favour- able for the concentration of land on the basis of private ownership, subsequently feudalism failed to develop in the classical European form. And in a still later period, the growth of manufacture was retarded by the fact that practically the entire social labour was required for the production of food.
Reared upon such a d^ective foundation, the Chinese society evolved haltingly and painfully. Except for this innate weakness, caused by the defective endowment of nature, CSiinese civilisation, in its eariy su^, hM no other distinctive feature. Indeed, the conditicms of China at the time of Confudus were remarkably Similar to those ^
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
25
contemporary Greece. The mission of Confucius was the same as that of the ancient Greek law-givers like Draco and Solon, namely, to lay the moral basis for the political oiganisation-of society. Yet, the seed sown in the countries around the Levant eventually blossomed forth into the modem civilisation of Europe, while China laboured in dark ages which appeared to be interminable. So, we must put our finger on the defective spot in the foundation of the Chinese society as the key to the ‘‘Chinese Puzzle”. Nor was the depressing darkness of the middle-ages a peculiarity of China. During the centuries intervening between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, Europe also was plunged into mediaeval darkness. When, after two thousand years of a painful history of wars, invasions, devastations, femine and bitter class struggle — the Chinese society showed signs of surviving the defects of its birth, it was overtaken by yet another misfortune. That was the obstruction of its normal development through foreign intervention. The heirs of the anpient Greek civilisation invaded China, as it were, to punish her for having in the
remote past been a nearly successful rival of fair Hellas.
# « # #
Very little authentic is known of the two thousand years of Chinese history before Confucius. The only record of that period is contained in the Holy Books which, judged from their character and contents, can hardly be granted the dignity of history. They can rather be com- pared with the great Epics of Greece and India. They are a record of the ideology of a primitive civilisation. Although there is sufficient evidence as regards the spuriousness of some of the Classics, there cannot be much doubt about it that fragmentary records of the intelleaual life of that remote period did exist in some form or other.* It is
• The Chinese reformer Kang Yn-wei wrote in the closing years of the century to prove that Confncins hiipself composed the
Classics as the backgronnd for his own teadiings. He also maintained that three of the five books were interpolations by the scholars of the Han Bra.
26 REVOLimON AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
immaterial whether Confucius compiled them, or edited them, or actually wrote the Classics on the basis of the fragmentary records that came down to him. The fact is that they do prove two things: That the ancient Chinese culture was not irreligious as commonly believed ; and that Chinese society abou* a dozen centuries before Christ had definitely crystallised into tribal federations and confedera- tions based upon j^iculture as the principal, if not the only, mode of production.
The foundation of the pre-Confucian society was the Tsing Tien system of land-holding. That was a consanguine oiganisation binding nine families of the same clan into a productive unit. In the earlier part of the Chow Regime (11th — 3rd centuries B.C.), a territory of about a million square kilometers was divided among 1,800 principalities which were tribal organisations like the Greek phartries and the Roman curia. The social pyramid was as follows: Five family groups made a kei, ten keis made a li, four Us made a leh, and four lehs made a siang. The structure bears a striking similiarity to the tribal organisation in ancient Greece which was: thirty families made a gen, thirty gens made a phartry, and three phartries composed a tribe. That system of tribal organisation was breaking up towards the end of the Chow Dynasty, although it persisted in a fossilised form throughout the history of China. A considerable element of it still persists even in the present system of land tenure.
Confucius lived in the period (6th century B.C.) when the -Tsing Tien system was decaying. The burden of his teachings was restoration of the decayed clan system and, with it as the basic unit, to build up a political State of benevolent despotism. Like the ideologists of the ancient Greek civilisation, Confucius also evolved the philosophy of a State and society based upon, class relations. Advocate of a centralised State, he represented the progressive tendency ; but the pro^essive element in his philost^hy was counter-balanced by his defence of a decayed social
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
27
system which was to be the basis of the centralised State. That contradiction of Confucianism was the ideological reflex of the contradiction in the motive forces of the antique Chinese civilisation.
Bolder thinkers challenged Confucius, and succeeded in overwhelming him for the time being. For more than two hundred years, the forces of conservatism lost ground to those of disruption and dissolution. And under the pressure of the same basic coniradictions of the situation, the ideologist of the plebeian revolt, Lao Tze, degenerated into pessimism and pacifism. But the seeds sown by him found a fertile ground, and eventually fructified in the revolutionary philosophy of the materialists, Mu Tze and Yang Tze, particularly the latter, who can be called the enfant terrible of ancient China. Finally, in the third century B.C., rose Yang Chang. Inspired by him, the Chin Revolution sought to abolish the Tsing Tien system and unite the country under the absolutism of a feudal emperor. The Chin Emperor burned all the writings of Confucius. But presently the Chin Revolution consumed itself. The Chinese society gravitated back to the Tsing Tien system, and five hundred years after his death, Confucius was enthroned definitely as the National Sage of China. Until to-day, he sits on his dilapidated throne, not even the formidable guns of foreign Imperialism having been able to shake seriously his position, fortified by holy tradition.
Confucius and his philosophy survived the vicissitudes of centuries because he preached reform. In his time, the conditicHis of China were not ripe for a revolutionary change. The old system was decaying. But there had not yet arisen a class so divorced from the old mode of produc- tion as to be able to build a new social order. The germs dF feudalism had indeed been sown ; slavery, serfdom and the rest of the specific features of the age were there. But the incipient forces of revolution were organically inter- woven with the basic social units of the consanguine family
28 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
groups. They were not strong enough to clear away the .decayed system.
In its premature entry into the stage of civilisation, the Chinese society had brought with it a heavy ballast of barbarism which seriously impeded its further progress. The collapse of the Chin Revolution showed that, though decayed, the Tsing Tien system was still the main spring of China’s national economy, and that the feudal mode of production was not yet developed enough to replace it.
The country, however, was in a pitiable state. Taking place under a disadvantage imposed by nature, the primi- tive accumulation of wealth meant greater deprivation, destitution and oppression for the masses. The absence of the beasts of burden was compensated by human beings who remained tied to the barbarous bondage of blood. The growing greed of incipient feudalism plunged the land into a state of chronic internecine war. Confucius was the ideologist of some improvised system that could save the country from ruin. Conditions, historic and objective, were not ripe for a revolutionary change. The way out of the impasse must be found in some readjustment of jarring relations. Confucius indicated the way, and proposed the ■creation of a confederation of the semi-feudal, semi- patriarchal States based upon the heritage of barbarism — the consanguine clan oiganisation. He did not advocate the destruction of the decayed system. He was not a revolutionary. Conservatism is the main principle (rf Confucianism. The substance of his teachings was: Don’t plunge headlong into destruction ; make the best of a bad situation and Wait for better days. He was a reformer, and as such he won his exalted position in Chinese history.
As a Minister of the principality of Lu (modem Shantung), Confucius tried to construct his ideal State. The main object his reform was to stabilise the undermined Tnng Tien system. He advooited some modificattmis and measures designed to prevent too many men firom being -withdrawn from production to swdl t^ army. For dnu
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
29
purpose, the kingdom was divided into a number of family groups ovraing land collectively. They were graded according to the amount of land they held. Each family had to send one of its adult members to the army who, however, did not become, as previously, a soldier by pro- fession. He served in the dual capacity of soldier and peasant in alternate terms. The Confucian reform sought to curb the operation of the incipient feudal elements. They therefore conspired against Confucius, and soon turned him out of ofhce, to wander over the country in search of a -“wise king”. His life proved that Confucius had undertaken a task not to be accomplished. He died a disappointed man. His last words were: “No wise king appears ; no one in the kingdom wishes to make me his master. It is time for me to die.”'
The fall of Confucius, in his life-time, and the defeat of his opponents two hundred years later, show how extremely complicated the situation was. The older order was decaying, but it still possessed great persistence. On the other hand, the elements making for a new system, though gaining ground, were still very far from the power of playing a decisive role.
Confucius himself testifies to the growth of feudal forces, and hints that the salvation of the situation was in the restriction of those forces. Upon his expulsion from the principality of Lu, he exclaimed in indignation: “The princes nowadays have insatiable desire for riches and are indefatigable in pleasure and extravagances. They are negligent and lazy ; they are haughty and arrogant. They exhaust the people and place themselves against the multi- tude, and try to overthrow them who are going the right way.”*
Notwithstanding the dwarfed development of the new social foixes, the age of Confucius was an ^e of bitter class struggle. Internecine wars among the tribal chiefe had
^ Ccmfucius, ‘‘Analects**.
•lUgge, “Chinese Classics**.
^0 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
proceeded with such ferocity that by the eighth century B.C. the number of principalities had been reduced to twenty. Only four hundred years ago, the number was about eighteen hundred. In the midst of that holocaust stood the theocratic Chow Dynasty claiming paramount power. The country was laid desolate by a fierce struggle for supremacy. 7'he people were oppressed to the utmost limit. The aspirations of the dominant and oppressed classes were .expressed respectively by Confucius and Lao Tze. While the former sought to save society from violent dissolu- tion by introducing his Draconian moral codes, the latter raised the voice of primitive democracy. Lao Tze preached jhe doctrine of a plebeian revolt.
“Those that are stark and rigid are followers of death. Those that are tender and weak are followers of life. A strong army does not (always) win, and a strong tree grows to decay. The strong and great are coward, the tender and the weak are uplifted. There is nothing under the Heaven that excels water in tenderness and weakness, yet there is nothing that surpasses it in efficiency when it attacks the hard and the strong. This is known to everybody, that the strong is conquered by the weak, that the rigid is conquered by the tender.”*
As against the rigid social codes of Confucius, his ppponent further preached: “Men naturally follow the ways of the Tao (Heavenly Way). Let them alone. Do not subject them to rules and formalities which, being unnatural, distort their normal evolution. The more mandates and laws are enacted, the more there will be thieves and robbers. If an end were put to sageness, and wisdom put away, the great robbers would cease to arise ; if jade was put away and pearls broken to bits, the small thieves would not appear.”*®
This doctrine of laissez faire was a mighty challenge to die Confucian social philosophy based on an elaborate
’ SMuki, “History of Bariy Chinese Philosophy’’.
Ibid.
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
31
system of duties and obligations. The consanguine family was the corner-stone of Confucian society ; the children were to be completely subordinated to the parents. Con- fucius ordained; “Serve the parents, be loyal to the Government, and establish a good name for yourself.” The individual was but an insignificant cog in the ruthless wheel which was the expression of the Such severe
codes of conduct were necessary to prevent the threatening social disintegration. The independence of the tribal organisation should be subordinated to a central authority, il society was not to disintegrate in consequence of the constant and continued feuds amongst them. China stood faced with the historic necessity of codified laws and defined power for public institutions. On the other hand, to secure the subordination of the independent tribal organisations to a central authority, it was necessary that the power, duty and obligation of that authority should also be clearly defined. Therefore, Confucius laid down codes of conduct not only for the people, but also for the theocratic monarch himself. For the guidance of the latter, the mythical example of the Three Divine Kings and Five Sovereigns was held up. The portrait of those mythical personages was drawn in the Shih Ching (The Book of History). Most probably, those ideal characters were drawn* at least heavily retouched, by Confucius himself. The social significance of the Confucian “wise king” was essentially the same as that of the “philosophers” in Plato’s Republic. Both represented the abstract ideal for a politi- cal State based upon written laws regulating the relation of classes as against the anarchy of the decayed tribal social order. In order to bring order out of> chaos, it was necessary to set up a depository of all power. It was the State which, according to Confucius, was the quintessence of all human relations. On the authority of the Holy Book,
’‘Coafndns held that the Too, defined by Lao Tze and others as the thmg-m-it9tlf“-the onktiowii and tinknotrable, was the jen which meant something like syrapatj[iy or fellow-feeling.— Legge, ''Chinese Classics'^.
82 kEVOLUTION AND COONTEft-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
he maintained that the fundamental principle of human society was the subordination of the wife to the husband, of the children to the parents, and of the subject to the ruler. He set up an Emperor at the ap^ of his social pyramid. The cardinal doctrine of Confucian philosophy is “the nature of man makes government the greatest and most important thing in the world.” By laying down this ideological foundation of the political State, Osnfucius not only places himself on an equal footing with Plato and Aristotle as one of the fore-runners of modem civilisation, but even anticipates Locke and Montesquieu.
It is not only on the authority of the mythological “wise king” that Confucius evolved his philosophy of the State. He reared it also upon a system of cosmology. He was not an atheist ; his philosophy was not irreligious. It was evolved out of the background of natural religion just as ancient Greek idealism. The prehistoric “divine kings”, after whom the head of the Confucian political State should model himself, were theocratic monarchs. Confucian political philosophy retained a large element of theocratic tradition, just as his moral codes were meant to galvanise decayed patriarchal relations. In the Confucian State, the Emperor is the High Priest, tribal chiefs and patriarchal statesmen constituting the hierarchy. The theocratic nature persisted in the Chinese Swte throughout history. The function of the head of the State included making periodical offerings to the Heaven, Earth, Ancestors, Confucius, Sun, Moon, the God of Rains and a whole host of other divinities familiar to all natural religions. Even in the nineteenth century, on the occasion of a great famine, the Chinese Emperor at the head of his hierarchy prayed for rain in the following words: “I, Minister of Heaven, placed over mankind and responsible for keeping the world in order, etc., etc.” The head the Confucian State was not the God-appointed as in absolute monarchy, he was the Miiuster of Heaven. That is a theocratic conceptima.
Confucian coimology is dualistk. There are two
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
33
principles in nature: Yang and Yi, meaning respectively the strong and the weak, the male and the female, the heaven and the earth. The Universe represents the inter- play of these two principles. The interplay is governed by fixed laws which are enigmatically set forth in the Yi Ching (Book of Change), as the sixty-three trigrams.^^ The resem- blance with the Pythagorean numerical conception of the Universe is unmistakable. The doctrine of two principles in nature bears resemblance to the fundamental doctrine of the Sankhya system oi Hindu philosophy. In all the three countries of classical civilisation — Greece, India and China — approximately at the same time, the evolution of society had reached the stage of outgrowing natural religion and producing primitive materialism and speculative philo- sophy. The dualistic conception of the Universe is the ideological reflex of a society split up into classes. The growth of classes with antagonistic interests creates the necessity for laws to govern the relation between them.
The basic sanction of Confucian moral and political philosophy is the assumption that the interaction of the two cosmological categories definitely establishes a set of laws by which everything in this world is governed. The mission of the wise man is to teach the people to act in harmony with those universal laws. Some superficial students of Chinese philosophy have characterised Confucius as a materialist. The basic sanction of his philosophy, however, was a metaphysical assumption. Therefore, he was an idealist. As an idealistic system, his philosophy was rooted in religion.
In the time of Confucius, there developed tendencies towards speculative thought which disputed the meta- physical assumptions of religion. The leader of that tendency was Lao Tze, an elder contemporary of Confucius. The tendency, however, was weak, and was overwhelmed eventually by the conservative doctrines of Confucius. The
“Chinese Classics".
3
54 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
social basis of the speculative thought in ancient China was not the rising class of traders as in antique Greece. The dhinese speculative thought and mysticism were the ideo- logical expression of the aspirations of the peasant masses tied, on the one hand, to a decayed tribal organisation and, on the other, crushed under the iron-heel of incipient feudalism. Therefore, it could not be the stimulus for primitive materialism, although it was not altogether sterile in that respect. Its main line of development, however, was in the direction of mysticism, pessimism and pacifism. The helpless victims of a decayed social order had no perspective before them. Mercilessly oppressed, completely destitute and without any hope for something better in this world, the semi-slave, semi-serf peasant masses found the only consolation in mysticism. Later, they relapsed in the darkness of natural religion, the heritage of barbarism. That tendency was strengthened by the incorporation of ancestor-worship in the social institutions of Confucius. As the Confucian State was built on the basis of consanguine family groups, ancestor- worship was naturally one of its pillars. When the patriarchal family constitutes the basis of social and political organisations, its unity and continuity is preserved through the worship of the departed ancestors.
Mysticism is the ideology of a society which finds itself in a blind alley. Already in the classical period, agriculture had been highly developed in China. But owing to the basic fact that, in the cultivation of soil, human labour had not been supplemented by animal energy, the development of the higher forms of production had been very slow. Consequently, when in course of time the primitive agri- culture was overtaxed to support a society well advanced in the early stages of civilisation, but still retaining the impediments of barbarous splendour, there had hardly appeared other forces of pr^uction to relieve it The peasantry was therefore (^pressed intolerably. It was restive — rebellious. But in the absence of a new class, possessing higher means of production, potentially ready to
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
35
create a new social order on the ruins of the old, the dis- content of the oppressed masses could not find a constructive expression. It degenerated into pessimism, and pessimism bred mysticism.
Material conditions encouraging pessimism and mysti- cism were so very ripe in the time of Confucius that he himself was affected by them in his earlier years. Strong trends of mysticism are found in the Yi Ching (Book of Change), which contains Confucian cosmology. But the task before the ruling class of the epoch was to deal with the realities of physical life. The established social system was breaking down. The burning problems were: How should man live? How should social relations be re- adjusted? How should the administration of the country be conducted? How should national economy be saved from imminent ruin? Basing himself upon an essentially religious cosmological conception, Confucius constructed a moral and political philosophy, the fundamental principle of which was that all human relations are governed by the auto-operation of an absolute Divine Will (jen). Chaos characterised the epoch. The established order depended, in the first place, upon the creation of a stable central authority. The conception of the jen provided the sanction for the required authority. Defined by Confucius as sympathy or fellow-feeling, the jen resulted from the inter- play of the two cosmological elements — Yang and Yi. His philosophy grew out of the conditions and necessities of the time. The society was split into two classes: their inter- relation must be defined. The dissolution of society could be averted only by harmonising the relation between the elements competing it. The conception of a universal principle of fellow-feeling was evolved out of an objective necessity. Confucius maintained that the jen was the foundation of human society, and as such regulated all human conduct. Out of a dualistic cosmolt^ he evolved a monistic idealism as the metaphysical sanction for his
36 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
political philosophy of a unitary State to harmonise the relation between antagonistic social classes.
Confucius propounds his philosophy of a unitary central authority with the following argument: "There are no two suns in the sky ; no two kings in a land ; no two princes in a State ; no two chiefs in a family.” The inter- play of the two cosmological elements produces a universal moral principle. Correspondingly, the interplay of the two social elements (wife and husband, children and parents, subject and the ruler) also produces a third factor, which is neither the one nor the other, but regulates the relation between the two. That is the fundamental principle of the Confucian theory of State, a theory which combines barbarous theocracy, tribal patriarchy and incipient feudalism into a federal political structure.”
Confucius lived down his mysticism, and asked the leaders of speculative thought: “How could we know death, when life is not yet solved? Do not trouble your- selves with things super-natural. How could we serve spiritual beings, while we do not know how to serve men?”” He differred from the Taoists not as regards the existence of a Supreme Being, or Divine Principle. The difference was regarding its nature. While the Taoists maintained that it was metaphysical, transcendental, Con- fucius held it to be moral. So, a conception of morality, derived from the metaphysical assumption of a heavenly
“ A. modern Chinese political writer characterises the political philosophy of Confucius as follows : * ‘Confucius can hardly be accused of hastening revolutions by building castles in the air. He saw that the quickest and safest way of improving the political conditions of his people was to reinstate the method which flourished in the Golden Age of the ancient regime. First a liaison between the State and the family was made. The ruler was a king-father, the mandarins parent-officials, and the people childrcn-people. By makix^ this liaison, he endeavoured to imbue the organisation of the State with some of the elements that made the family system stable, and his attempt proved a success. If one wonders how a centralised monarchy like that of China, without constitutional limitation, could keep Itself within reasonable bounds of liberalism for more than thousand year», the patriarchal element of the institution gives the answer/^-— Haieh Pao-^ao, *'The Governsnont of Chjina^'.
8u*uki» ‘'History of Chineic FhBoeophy.
THE FOUNDATION OF’ CHINESE SOCIETY
57
principle, was the peculiar form that religioK'j^ok in China, Several centuries after the death of its fomifler, CohfucTan- ism, adulterated with a vulgarised form ol’^iPuddhlSm, became the State religion of China. Confucius himself was included in the galaxy of divinities, and received his share of the annual offering which was one of the functions of the Chinese monarchy throughout the ages.
All the Chinese sages agree on the eiastence of a Supreme Being which is believed to regulate natural events and human conduct. But no Godhead is set up as the judge of human beings. There is the Tien, or the Tien Ming (Heavenly Way) which lays down the law governing all earthly phenomena. Those who violate the heavenly Way suffer. The Heavenly Way is moral, and does not brook any contradiction to its will. That is a primitive conception of the Natural Law of the post-Renaissance European thought. Nor is there any essential difference between the absolute inviolability and infallibility of the Confucian Heavenly Way and the Godhead of the great world religions.
All the great world religions, as distinct from the primitive natural religion, originally were the ideology of the oppressed class. Taoism was the religion of ancient China in that sense. The class struggle in ancient China was the social background of the fierce antagonism between Taoism and Confucianism. That antagonism was the main feature of the intellectual life of the countiry for three hundred years. The historic stru^le ended in the establish- ment of a socio-political system on the suppression of a plebeian revolt. That was a landmark ip the evolution of Chinese society. That was also another weak spot in its foundation. The suppression of the plebeian revolt, how- ever, was predetermined. While the earlier stages of civilisation were marked by a fierce class struggle, there had not appeared in the social oiganism a new force sufficiently strong to lead the oppressed masses in their revolt against the decayed order.
38 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
The final defeat of Taoism indicated the collapse of the plebeian revolt. Owing to the immaturity of its social basis, Taoism could not develop into a great world religion. Confucianism came victorious out of a prolonged wrestle, because it embodied both religion (recognition of a super- natural force) and an idealistic moral philosophy (ideology of the ruling class). In ancient Greece, classical idealism grew out of primitive materialism ; therefore it was revolu- tionary and as such was the spiritual fountain-head of all the forces of modern civilisation. In China, Confucian idealism reared itself on the background of a barbarous natural religion. Therefore, it was of a static character, and as such, preventing the dissolution of the ancient society, subsequently became the philosophy of national stagnation.
Confucius constructed his philosophical system on the assumption of an abstract principle which is the beginning and regulator of everything. The universal principle was endowed with innate goodness. The ide^ of goodness was the highest idea. Hence the prominence given to *‘human- ness" and '‘righteousness*' in the Confucian philosophy. It maintained that all is good by the heavenly law. It was a concession to the Taoists who proclaimed the doctrine of social equality on the strength of their monist conception of the Universe. By that concession, Confucius smuggled religion into his philosophy, and cut the ground under the feet of the ideologists of the plebeian revolt — ^the would-be founders of the abortive Chinese World Religion. That concession to monism was presently made the source of moral deduction sanctioning dualism in the social organisa- tion. A monistic idealism, on a dualist cosmological background, became the philosophy of class domination, fortified by a unitary State.
The Confucian doctrine of the- innate goodness of human nature is elaborated as follows: “The feeling of fellowship is the primary altruistic instinct of man which* in spite of his innate ^ism, drives him out of his morrow selfish limitation and which seeks its own sati^ction
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY'
. 39
through the negation of itself.”^’ This doctrine of primi- live ^'social contract*’ ostensibly was applicable to all and sundry ; but just as with the theory of social contract of a later period, in actuality, it also was a theory having for its object, on the one hand, restraint of the absolutism of a decayed class and, on the other, creation of conditions for the domination of a new class. Starting from the assump* tion that all human relations are governed by the operation of the Heavenly Way, present in evety human being as fellow-feeling, Confucius constructed his elaborate system of duties, virtues and proprieties. Applied to the ruling class, the doctrine of universal fellowship revealed its real meaning, which w^as subordination of one class to another, so that society could be saved from imminent dissolu- tion. Confucius urged upon the ruling class his doctrine of fellowship and humanij^ with this argument: *‘The good emperors of old made the world peaceful, and people lived in harmony, the inferior contented under the superior.”^* Constant and continuous internecine wars were ruining the people who consequently were getting restive and rebellious, threatening the very existence of society. Peace must be established as the first condition for social reconstruction. Fellow-feeling amongst the warring princes was needed for that purpose. Harmony between the ruling class and the people, essential for the preservation and progress of society, was conditional upon the harmony amongst the princes themselves. The doctrine of fellowship, as far as the princes were concerned, was the principle of class solidarity.
TTie operation of the Heavenly Way teaches everybody to find his place in society and perform his duty. The duty of the princes is to establish peace. They were exhorted to do so by the example of the rulers of the Golden Age. ‘‘The ancients, who wished to spread virtue throughout the world, first set their own States in order.
**Aiialects**.
« Ibid.
40 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
Wishing to rule their States well, they first regulated their families. Their States being well ruled, there was peace in the world.”"
The patriarchal foundation of the Confucian State is clearly discernible here. Internal decomposition of the clan was the source of all social evils. The clan was the family of the prince. The position of the prince, who should be the pillar of the centralised political State, could not be stabilised unless the inter-relations of the consanguine family groups composing the clan were regulated. Thus, Confucian laws inevitably hindered the growth of private property. They galvanised a decayed social ^stem and strangulated the incipient forces of a new order. The con- tradiction of the Confucian laws was the reflex of the contradictions of the social conditions of the epoch.
Confucian definition of th^ttitude of the middle class reveals the weakness of that class. Owing to that weakness, the middle class, which otherwise would have destroyed the old order to establish a new, fawned upon the clan chiefs. Sycophancy is a characteristic feature of the Confucian philosophy. For the conduct of the literati, Confucius laid down the following rules: “Not failing to treat the august master (prince) with loyalty, and the venerable (ruling class) with respect, we shall be able to make ourselves secure in our high positions.”" The duty of the common people, according to Confucius, is “to do the necessary in every season ; to do the utmost to make the land as fertile as possible ; and to be frugal in their expenses.”"
Evidently, the Confucian doctrine of fellowship does not admit of equality. Confucian fraternity is not the twin sister of equality, and tolerates only well regulated liberty. The uniform operation of the Heavenly Way is an abstract conception. In practical life, it does not imply equality. On the contrary, the difference of occupations and the
*' Qnoted by Waag Oiiag-dao ia “Coafacias and New Oiiaa’’. ” ‘TAnalects”.
••rwd.
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
41
resulting division of society into classes are sanctioned by It as in the nature of things. Hence the elaborate laws and regulations, made to defend them, are moral.
As Greece needed Solon and Braco to formulate rigo- rous laws of social conduct, so did China need Confucius with his moral philosophy and social codes. The country was in a great crisis. As the ideology of the downtrodden masses, Taoism was raising its ominous head. Lao Tze and his followers were preaching a dangerously disruptive philo- sophy. The advance of civilisation had made natural religion inadequate for satisfying the spiritual needs of society. Speculative thought was tearing down from their throne the elemental divinities set up by the ignorance of tribal society in the state of barbarism. Social relations, established on the authority of those divinities, sacerdotal and theocratic codes, were all breaking down. The specu- lation about the cause of the world with its sorrows and sufferings, the search for the origin of things, indicated the dissatisfaction of the people with the established order. Taoism was iconoclastic. Its basic principle as formulated by Lao Tze was: “The life is a passing episode of the eternal existence whic;h, being absolute, is free from all inequalities.”^® The principle developed in two distinct directions: mysticism and passivity, on the one hand, and indignation and revolt against the established order, on the other. Asserting that the phenomenal world was not real, Lao Tze concluded that: “The wise remains free and unattached in the midst of this constant change ; he lives as if not living.”** At the same time, he taught, obviously as a challenge to the Confucian doctrine of self-abnegation, that the “basic principle of conduct is to enjoy the bliss of life.”*® In either direction, it was potentially dangerous. One way, it spelled social dissolution ; in the other, it heralded a revolutionary upheaval.
"" Eegge, ^'CHinese Philoaophy".
‘^md.
“Suzuki, ‘'History of CMuese PtUlosophy'*.
42 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
Taoism was a mystic cult with a strong dose of stoicism. It was predominantly i^e ideology of the dissolution of a decayed social order. Ancient Chinese civilisation was on the verge of death from the disease of its birth. It lacked the vitality that is generated from the possession of pro- gressively higher modes of production. The main source of production was sapped by the employment of a greater and greater number of men in the continuous internecine wars. On the other hand, people were deserting the land, not being able to bear the burden imposed upon them. Some of the “good kings” ploughed the field themselves to set an example to the people ; and their queens spun with the same purpose. The ancient Greece with new blood in its veins stamped out the disruptive doctrine of stoicism. But classical China was swayed by Lao Tze, so dangerously near to dissolution was her social structure. Scoffing at Confucius, he preached:
“When the Great Too (Supreme Divine Principle) is obliterated, we have humanness and righteousness. Pru- dence and circumspection appear, and we have much hypocrisy. When family relations no longer harmonise, we have filial piety and paternal love. When the country and clans decay through disorder, we have loyalty and allegiance. Abandon your saintliness, put away your prudence, and the p>eople will gain a hundredfold. Abandon your human- ness, put away your righteousness, and the people will return to filial piety and paternal love. Abandon your scheming, put away your gains, and thieves and robbers will no longer exist.”*®
But the decay and disorder were not to be remedied by letting things take their own course. Lao Tze’s indigna- tion might be righteous ; but it was futile, because it did not indicate a way out of the chacs. He was not the prophet of a new order. He did not sp^k on behalf of a new class. He voiced the anger, despair and desolation of
®* Snznki, “History of Chinese Philosophy”.
^ THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
45
the oppressed masses. He was a nihilist. His philosophy was revolutionary in so far as it attacked the decayed established order. As against him, Confucius was the defender of vested interests. But in the given situation, the one appeared as the apostle of the dissolution of a decayed civilisation, whereas the other represented the striving for reconstruction.
Voicing the sentiment of the masses, groaning under the corroded chains of patriarchal relations, Lao Tze exclaimed: *‘Give people as much freedom as they want; let them not be encumbered with artificial formalities and excrescent regulations ; leave them alone as much as possible ; and lead them to the stage of primitive innocence and absolute artlessness. This policy will secure peace and good order that prevailed before the times of cord-knotting administration.”^^
The voice of the plebs of ancient China was raised still more defiantly by Yang Tze — a younger contemporary of Lao Tze. He must have risen from the plebeian ranks, for he was not counted as a philosopher, but as an “eccentric soul disturbed by a pessimistic view of things”. Probably a member of the oppressed class, he had ample reason to be pessimistic. The perspective before the distressed multi- tude was indeed very dark. Contact with the rude realities of the situation did not allow indulgence in detached mysticism and lofty utopia.
Yang Tze bitterly upbraided the artificial restraint which the classical doctrines of humanness and righteous- ness, codified by Confucius, sought to impose upon the natural impulses of human beings. He advocated, together with Lao Tze, that everyone should be free to go in his own way. He ridiculed the Confucian doctrine that, in order to have a good reputation after death, one should torture one's life under the yoke of moral force. He exclaimed: “Desires are consuming our corporeal strength,
‘‘History of Qutiese Philosophy*'
44 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
social traditions cripple our moral simplicity, national prejudices strangle our freedom of action, and laws and regulations bridle the expansion of our natural senti- ments.”’® He complained bitterly how, under such intoler- able conditions, could one enjoy life. He raised the standard of open revolt by inciting disobedience against the artificial regulations restraining human activities. He scoffed at the holy men as monstrosities and cried: “Down with the doctrinaires, hypocrites, moralists and vain aspirants after famel ” His bold advocacy of the freedom of thought and speech, and the still bolder assertion that “sufficient food and warm clothing are the things the human beings want”, were indeed revolutionary.
Yang is recorded to have had great support among the masses. Mencius, who lived more than two hundred years after Confucius and developed the political and social aspect of his philosophy, cried in alarm: “The doctrines of Yang and Mu are rampant. When the general public is not swayed by Yang, they are swayed by Mu. Yang is so egoistic as to ignore the existence of a ruler ; Mu ignores the existence of the parents. But when we do away with the ruler and the parents, we shall all be beasts.”’*
As against the disruptive doctrines of the Taoist philo- sophers, Confucius maintained: “If right principles were in force, it would not be necessary to change the circum- stances.” The right principles of Confucius were federal concentration of State power and its exercise with discre- tion. The chaotic and rebellious conditions of the country had been produced by the cupidity of the semi-feudal clan- chiefs ; a restraint upon their power was, therefore, the first requisite for any readjustment. The governmental organi- sation should be so as would relieve the only source of national income, namely, agriculture, and put at least a part the accumulated wealth to productive use. With
"Ibid.
"Ibid.
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
45
this object, Confucius laid down the following principles to govern the conduct of the ruling class:
"Virtue is the root, wealth is the fruit. The ruler must at first care for his personal virtue. Has he virtue, so he has the people. Has he the people, so he has the land. Has he the land, so he has wealth. Has he wealth, so he has abundance for use. If he makes the root (virtue) his secondary, and the fruit (wealth) bis primary object, he shall come in conflict with the people, and cause them to rob. Therefore, the iccumulation of riches is the way to scatter people, and just distribution of wealth is the way to gather them.”’'
Confucian political philosophy is benevolent despotism. It has obtained in China throughout her history, even down to our days. No new force capable of building a new order having emerged, the crisis of the antique Chinese society could not be overcome. The remedy was found in a reformation of the old. Threatened with complete destruc- tion, the old reformed itself, incorporating in its decayed organism the incipient germs of a more progressive system. But the germs of the new were subordinated to the mori- bund old. The result was a fossilised social structure.
Confucianism does not advocate equal distribution either of land or of wealth. It only proposes to limit the unproductive use of wealth. Its principle of taxation is: Don’t kill the goose that lays golden eggs. Its conception of justice would moderate the exploitation of the masses, so as to guarantee a state of contentment, so necessary to bring order out of chaos. But at the same time, it would not permit any encroachment upon the grandeur, comforts and privileges which, according to it, art the share of the ruling class.
But the social crisis was so severe and deep-seated in ancient China that the strivings for readjustment, expressed in the philosophy of Confucius, were nearly overwhelmed.
« iwd.
46 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
Confucianism could defeat the opposing ideology of social dissolution only when, in course of time, it gave more place to the strivings of the incipient new, although even then it reserved the commanding position for the theo-patriarchal monarchy. It became the State Religion of China after it had been improved upon by IVfencius more than two hundred years later. Mencius was the ideologist of primi- tive commodity production. He did not make any con- cession to the ideology of social dissolution. He lived in the fourth century B.C. By that time, the germs of a new order had grown in the organism of the Chinese society. The new forces, however, did not disrupt, but aided the old to save the Chinese society from dissolution. Mencius was the philosopher of that historic alliance.
On the other hand, the positive aspects of the teachings of Lao Tze were developed by Mu Tze, who was a con- temporary of Mencius. He condemned the luxurious habits of the ruling class on the ground that they involved unproductive consumption of wealth. He also advocated abolition of the custom of costly funerals and prolonged mourning, denouncing the latter as an impediment to production, for it kept away people from work. He opposed war, for it destroyed the productive forces of the country.
Mencius formulated the theory of the division of labour, and defended the consequent class distinction as in the nature of things. He argued that some worked with the mind, and others with the muscles ; the consequence of the difference in occupation was that the former ruled, and the latter were ruled. The latter must care for the nourish- ment and comfort of the former, who were justified in letting themselves to be so taken care of. Developing the Master’s ideas, Mencius held that, for the multiplication wealth, the number of producers must be greater than non- producers. He insisted upon diligence in production and economy in consumption. Mencius violently attacked Mu Tze: “So long as the teachings of Mu Tze and Yang Tze are not suppressed, those of Confucius will not fee made
THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE SOCIETY
47
manifest. The false doctrines are deceiving people, suffocating humanness and righteousness. I solicit the preservation of the teachings of the ancient Sages. It is my desire to keep Yang and Mu in check, and to drive away their unrestrained utterances, so that the upholders of false doctrines may not raise their head again.
The furious outburst of Mencius was the ideological reflex of the fierce class struggle that \/as shaking ancient Chinese society to its very foundation. Mencius was the prophet of the would be modern capitalist China, which never blossomed forth in full glory, because it had the load- stone of a semi-dead past tied round its neck. Mu and Yang were the classical revolutionaries of ancient China, and as such, their teachings are the heritage of the Chinese working class. They had their eyes fixed on a distant future, pregnant of immense possibilities, while their oppo- nents were wedded to the legendary Golden Age which was to be saved by injecting new blood into its decayed veins. The class struggle in ancient China can be very well visualised in the following figurative comparison of the two contending schools of philosophy:
'‘One is dignified in mien, deliberate in speech and stately in movement ; the other, quite opposite to this, is free and unrestricted in every way. We can mentally picture one donning a golden robe with the embroidered figures of dragon and phoenix, and sitting with all kinds of brilliant gems, and presiding over an assembly of noblemen, who reverentially bow before the august personality which is singularly tempered with humane expression. The other might be imagined as swinging himself in a rustic hammock, among luxuriant summer greens, his old, almost thread- bare, dress loosely hanging about him, and with an expression, which hardly betrays a trace of earthly concern, while his eyes are rapturously raised towards a drifting cloud in the distant sky/'®*
" im.
48 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
The ideologists of the plebeian revolt in ancient China were so many fingers of history pointed to the future. The standard of revolt, raised in that remote period of antiquity, marked the beginning of a stri^le, the history of which coincided with the entire history of China. Emperors came and emperors went ; dynasties rose and dynasties fell ; but the struggle continued.
CHAPTER II
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
Even to-day, the fundamental unit of Chinese society is not the individual, but the family. The revolution of 1911, and the Republican State established by it, did not alter essentially the patriarchal character of that social institution. Unaer the Republic, new laws were given. But social relations cannot be changed over-night through legislation, so long as the economic foundations of those relations are not subverted. Under the old regime, the father was the legal head of the family ; by tradition, he enjoyed the right to dispose of the lives of his children.* The Republican laws changed the position of the pater jamilias but partially. Individual rights have been created, but the patriarchal foundation of society has not been com- pletely destroyed. The ownership of land — the main means of production in China — still belong to families, and even to clans. The defective form of private property in the main means of production hinders the individual from replacing the patriarchal family as the basic unit of society.
In the capitalist society, family is not abolished. It continues to be the foundation of society. But its character changes. The monogamous family is essentially different from the patriarchal family ; it does not push the individual to the background. It is a social institution which rises in course of the evolution of private property. Individualism is the fundamental philosophical principle of capitalism, the highest form of private property. Therefore, indivi- dualism and monogamous family are not mutually exclusive. They exist side by side, being two different branches of the same social system founded upon private property. While
* O. von Mullendorf, '^Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Chinese Branch), No. 2, 1S92-93.
4
50 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
the monogamous family is the nucleus of bourgeois society, the individual is the corner-stone of the capitalist State. The right of the individual is the fundamental principle of bourgeois political philosophy.
The republican form of government was introduced in China only in name The old political order broke down. But the social relations underlying it remained intact, to a large extent, resisting the strivings to build up a repub- lican system of government. Because of its weak social foundation, the Republic was eager to adjust itself to anti- quated conditions. Consequently, republican laws could not go even to the extent of undermining the institution of the pater familias. They granted to the individual the right of self-defence, although not to the extent of killing. But the right is not valid in the case of an attack by an elder relative.^ In a work on the new Chinese Penal Code, the famous jurist, Wang Chiang-hui, former Chief Justice of the Peking High Court, observes: “The Anglo-American laws lay special emphasis on the individual and not on the family ; while the Continental (European) Codes have in- herited something from the Roman family. The unit of the Chinese society being the family, the Reform, naturally, tries to retain this institution and modernise it as far as possible.'"®
After two thousand five hundred years, the spirit of the old sage Confucius still dominates the thinkers of modern China. They long for something new ; the old has become untenable ; yet they try to clothe the venerable skeleton with a few selected pieces of novelty. The reformers under- take a hopeless task when they try to readjust patriarchal social relations with bourgeois political and legal institu- tions. The hopelessness of the task became evident during the dreary years of the futile struggle for the defence of the Republic. The “modern State", as conceived by the Chinese nationalists, is essentially Confucian. The initial
•The Penal Code of the Chinese Republic.
•l>r. Wang Chiang-htd, “The New penul Code of China“. fThe quotation is re-translated fxom the German edition of this bOOh) •
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
51
period of its creation is not to be revolutionary dictatorship, but a benevolent despotism of a few persons claiming the right to educate the people with the object of “developing their ability to exercise political rights, so that a constitu- tional regime may be soon realised and political power delivered to the hands of the people.”^ So, according to the open admission of her “modern” rulers, China is not that kind of State in which at least theoretically the supreme political p>ower belongs to the people composed of indivi- duals. In the “Republic” of the Chinese nationalists, the relations are reversed ; the political structure stands on its head, so to say. The political power and, consequently, the right of sovereignty, are monopolised by an dlite, who benevolently promise to pass them on to the people in some indefinite future, when these will have qualified themselves for shouldering the responsibility. Since the self-appointed guardians reserve to themselves the right of judging when the people will have attained political majority, it is not very likely that the promised transfer of power will ever take place. Chinese “republicanism” does not provide for a legislative body created by universal suffrage, of the kind that formally constitutes the highest oigan of the bourgois democratic State. Its political ideology is determined by the patriarchal relation which still underlies the major sector of the Chinese national economy.
Unable as well as unwilling to set up a revolutionary dictatorship with the object of sweeping away all antiquated social relations, which hinder the creation of a modem democratic State, the nationalist bourgeoisie dress them- selves up in the musty, threadbare, mantle oi benevolent despotism, and thereby demonstrate their own impotence.
The cause of all these contradictions and peculiarities <rf the political life of modem China must be sought in the stmeture of her social system. In spite of the unreliability of the Chinese census report, it can be reasonably assumed
* ''Fundamental Law of the National Government of the Chinese
Repuhlk* **, proclaimed by Hie Kuo Ming Tang on October 4, 1928.
52 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
tnat more than eighty-five per cent of the population live on the land. Sixty million families are engaged in agri- culture.^ Owing to this fact, the social structure of the village is the decisive factor in the life of the nation. The political life of a country is determined by the nature of, and the property right in, the prevailing means of produc- tion. Land is the main means of production in China. Therefore, the system of landownership constitutes the foundation of her social structure. And all other branches of national economy are largely influenced by the methods of cultivating land, that is to say, by the mode of production of the main industry of the country.
The system of landownership is essentially patriarchal. Not only is the land owned jointly by families, but often by family groups — clans.® There are villages which are populated by the members of single clans. Such villages are named after the clans. The landed property of the clan, or of families, or of individuals, is mostly derived directly from the State. It is a system in which, theoreti- cally speaking, private property in land does not exist, or is on a very low level of development. But practically, the superstructure raised on this patriarchal foundation is, to a high degree, of feudal character. The charges on land are expressly feudal, not only in their essence, but often in form. However may the present system of Chinese rural economy be theoretically appraised, feudal features in the history of the evolution of property in land are un- mistakable. The struggle between patriarchalism and feudalism characterised Chinese history ever since the days of Confucius. In the present form of landed property, elements of both the systems are to be found, and the over- lapping of the two systems, which normally characterise different stages of social development, is the peculiar feature
® Report of the Ministry of Agriculture, 1919.
• The formal collective ownership, however, does not prevent* as will be shown later on, the subordination of the cultivator to the system of landlords* rent and capitalist profit.
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
55
of Chinese society. This hybrid, produced by the two mutually exclusive social systems, was later penetrated by the mode of capitalist production.
Thus, the economic life of the Chinese village is sub- jected to a threefold exploitation: patriarchal, feudal and primitive-capitalist. Although large-scale feudal estates or capitalist farms are rare except in Manchuria and some of the northern provinces (Shantung and Chili), more than half of the cultivated land bears landlords' rent. The peasants cultivating the soil to-day are mostly either tenants or sub-tenants, having no proprietory right in the land. The rent is not fixed, and tenancy not permanent. Only in about thirty-four per cent^ of the land is the proprietory right of the cultivating peasant legally recognised. A con- siderable part of the cultivated land is the property of ancestral shrines, temples and schools. In these cases, originally, the right was communal. But the traditional right has been abolished in practice. Yet, the system of administering these traditionally communal properties even now supports patriarchal relations in rural economy and politics. The village elders have usurped the proprietory right of these formerly communal lands. The peasants who cultivate these liinds have been expropriated, practically if not legally. In consequence, the village elders have really become landlords. But the formal continuation of com- munal property in a considerable part of the land invests them even now with patriarchal rights and power.
At the same time, primitive capitalism has penetrated this feudal-patriarchal structure of rural economy. The result is the continuously growing impoverishment of the peasantry and extraordinary backwardness of the entire system of national economy. Although it is long since money has become the legal means for the payment of taxes to the Government, the rent is paid by the tenants still mostly in kind. This system of collecting rent in kind and paying
^ Report of the Agrarion Commission of the Kuo Ming Tang, 1936.
54 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
taxes in money makes traders out of the feudal-patriarchal landlords. The surplus of agriculture passes to their posses- sion. But their essential feudal-patriarchal character prevents that they become capitalists. The wealth accu- mulated in their hand does not become productive capital ; it is invested in semi-feudal landed property, which keeps national economy in backtvardness. On the other hand, subjected to pre-capitalistic methods of exploitation, the peasantry cannot improve their means of production, so as to grow out of their practical serfdom. Thus, in a precarious existence, the patriarchal family still continues to be the foundation of the social superstructure.
While hereditary property in land is not legally recog- nised, land theoretically belonging rather to the State, rent- bearing tenancy is the outstanding feature of the agrarian relation. Approximately sixtysix per cent of the cultivated land is subjected to the payment of rent to landlords.® So, for all practical purposes, even though not legally, private property has been created in land, because private property in land realises itself in the form of rent.® But the essence of this property in land is analogous neither to the allodium of the European middle-ages, nor the socage in feudal Britain, nor again the freehold of modern England. The right of this private property does not belong to peasants whose ancestors received the land ft?dm the Crown ; it belongs to a class which received rent and, by virtue of that, has become the owner irrespective of any written law. The growth of rent-receiving private property in land transforms the peasant into a tenant ; consequently, he becomes dependent on another lord in addition to the State.
The classical feudal property in land was created
• Report of the Agrarian Commission of the Ktio Min Tang, 1926.
* *'V^atever may be the specific form of rent, there is one thing in common to eli t3rpes of rent; the appropriation of rent is the econo- mic form in which property in land is realised; land rent presupposes proprietory right in land— me ownership of certain inditiduala of cer- tain parts of the globe.*' (Earl Marx, ‘'Capital”, Vol. 3, React II.— All the quotations from Marx are the author's translation from the original Carman.)
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY 55
through the expropriation of free peasant proprietorship. But the process was not uniform. Its essence was that between the king and the people, there rose a new class which, on the one hand, encroached upon the freedom and rights of the people and, on the other hand, restricted the king’s prerogatives. The rise and operation of the new class were determined by the relation previously subsisting between the king and the people. The peculiar features of Chinese feudalism were determined by the fact that a rent-receiving class appropriated the ownership of land, not by robbing the right of the peasant, but thanks to the transfer of the property right by the king to the court nobles, high officials and the patriarchal heads of villages. With this type of feudalism, the creation of private property in land begins at the top of society ; the rise of a land- owning class between the king and the people is not the result of expropriation, but represents the expansion of the basis of private property. The supremacy of the king is not disputed ; the nobility continues to be subordinated to the monarch. Since land remains the private property of the king, who incorporates the highest power (by the grace of God, in Europe, and thanks to direct descent from Heaven, in China), theoretically he is entitled to distribute it further from time to time. This prerc^tive guarantees for the king undivided loyalty of the people ; it provides him with the possibility of checking high concentration of land in private possession, and, consequently, the development of a powerful nobility. The most characteristic feature of this type of feudalism, therefore, is not the serf toiling on manorial estates, but the tenant cultivating the land which practically belongs to a person standing between himself and the king, under such conditions of production as deprive him of the entire surplus in the form trf rent and other charges.
In China, private property in land did not grow on the basis of the right of conquest. When the Germans conquered Gaul, the king shared the right of conquest with
56 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
all the members of the conquering race ; that was necessary for fortifying his position in a foreign land, still full of enemies. The division of land by the king was a mere formality. In reality, each member of the conquering race simply took possession of as much land as he could culti- vate. In order to secure the loyalty of his followers, the conquering king simply endorsed their action. Private property was created from the bottom. The transfer of the original private property in land, which in any case consti- tutes the foundation of feudalism, could not be an analogous process in the case of China, because there it started from the opposite pole of society. Because of the difference in the position of the two factors concerned, and in their mutual relation, the nature of the struggle was bound also to be different.
In China also the distribution of land by the king to the people was a mere formality, which simply sanctioned a system in force. But the substance of the system, formally sanctioned by the king in China, was fundamentally different from that in Gaul. In Gaul, private property in land was created by the conquering settlers ; in China, land came to be cultivated by separate families, while the tradi- tion of regarding it as public property continued. The right of the Chinese king was not the right of conquest. It was, so to say, an organic right which could more easily claim divine origin. Since the land was not conquered with the help of the entire people, not in the historical period at any rate, there was no necessity for dividing it. The monarchy rising out of the dissolution of tribal society ultimately developed into patriarchal despotism based on that unrestricted right — of the ownership of land. Under those conditions, the peasant could have the right of culti- vating land only by the grace of the Supreme Lord, and for his benefit, receiving only so much as is necessary for subsistence and reproduction. Thus, the development of private property in land invested the patriarchal monarch with feudal attributes. He was no lon^ the head of a
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
57
free community, possessing and cultivating the land collec- tively. He became the Lord and Master, and the people came to be composed of his subjects instead of free men.
But the king could not retain for ever the primitive monopoly of feudal rights. In course of time, the rights inevitably passed on to those standing nearest to him in the social organisation. That transfer of rights was not legally sanctioned ; but the rise of a feudal nobility was a fact. In consequence of its dependence on the king, this type of feudal aristocracy constitutes the foundation of that special form of State which ii characterised as Asiatic despotism.
In China, private property in land resulted from the decay of communal ownership and collective cultivation. The older system decayed ; but the ruins were not swept away. Instead, they became the foundation of the new form of property which, consequently, could not grow normally to the full stature. The king distributed land to the people. But he did not transfer the right of property, which remained vested in himself. Since private property in land was created not by conquest, but in consequence of the dissolution of primitive communism, the king's share in the product of agriculture assumed the character of ground rent in its most primitive form.
In that period, rent represented the entire surplus labour ; it absorbed directly the whole surplus product, and, as such, corresponded completely with surplus value. Surplus value tends towards circulation. With the appear- ance of rent, the private property in land expanded. So long as land belongs to the State, rent and tax are identical. The administrators of State revenue gradually came to be tax-farmers ; and, under the given conditions, rent being inherent in tax, they became landlords for all practical purposes.
The peasants had no right of ownership in land ; they could not be expropriated like their class in Europe. Consequently, in China, serfdom did not take the classical form* The specific Chinese forms of serfdom were semi-
58 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
slavery, forced labour and tenancy. The social position^ characterised by those peculiar appearances, however^ essentially was serfdom. For, the essence of serfdom is the obligation of the producers to cultivate land which, though in their posession, is not "their property, and to deliver a part of the produce to the landlord. Whatever remains with them, after the obligations to the landlord are dis- charged, might provide them a little more than the necessities of bare existence and reproduction. That depends on the conditions under which their labour is performed.^® In ancient and mediaeval China, natural conditions kept the surplus on a very low level. Often there was none. Consequently, serfdom approximated slavery, and the rise of capitalism within the limits of feudal relations was greatly restricted.^^
* # # «
The system of communal ownership and collective cultivation of land had decayed towards the end of the Chau period (400 B.C.) The germs of private property had begun to sprout. The continuous struggle of tribal chiefs had placed unbearable burden on the peasantry. They left their fields and ‘'wandered away'' for selling their labour to others who had land to cultivate.^* Consequently, the preconditions of slavery had been created. On the other hand, a large volume of labour, finding no employment on land, had created the foundation for other industries.
*®Karl Marx. ^‘Capital”, Vol. 3, Part II.
“ At this point, the original English manuscript of the book con» tained a comparative study of the development of feudalism in diferent parts of the world. The study led to several important theoretical conclusions. That part was left out of the Oerman edition, because it dealt in some details with processes of historical development generally known to well-educated European readers. Three chapters of the original manuscript having been lost, they had to be retranslated from Cerman. This is one of those chapters, Therefore, that important treatise on feudalism cannot be included in this edition. But I shall tty to re-write it so that it can be added to the ncact adjfion.
Quoted from Han Ei-tse, a contemporary writer, by Mabel Ping- Hua Iftte in “The Economic History of Ghina“.
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
59
Production for primitive trade had begun. But the main branch of national economy was threatened with a severe crisis as the people began to leave the land. If the people could no longer be kept bound to the land, the dissolution of the established social system would be unavoidable. In that crisis appeared Confucius and later his famous disciple, Mencius, with their doctrines of social reform on the basis of a synthesis between the tottering old and the rising new.
In the midst of those chaotic conditions, the first effort to build a new social order was made in the kingdom of Chin (the modem province of Shensi). The kingdom was very thinly populated ; but, bordering on the Mongolian pasture-lands, it possessed cattle and other beasts of burden. So, there were conditions, in which agriculture could be the source of primitive accumulation and consequently lay down the foundation for a further development of society. In 250 B.C., the decayed Tsing-Tien system — tribal owner- ship of land — was abolished in the kingdom of Chin ; the government appealed to the people of other States, in chaos and decay, to come to Chin and settle on the land which would belong to them. FromT the neighbouring territories, they streamed in, and before long the kingdom of Chin became very prosperous. Sale and purchase of land were allowed in Chin. Consequently, it concentrated into large estates employing many labourers who, under the conditions of the epoch, could not bu^ be slaves. Prisoners taken in wars w^ed on the west were also employed on land as slaves. Not only did agriculture pros- per ; the surplus of the main branch of economy stimulated the growth of handicraft and trade. The rest of the country was in decay and disorder ; therefore trade found its way to foreign lands. Routes of caravan trade with Central Asia and Persia were opened. Out of that advantageous posi- tion rose the guild of Shensi merchants which for centuries, until to-day, played a leading part in the foreign trade of China.
60 REVOLUTION AND COUN FER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
Having consolidated its position at home, the Chin Dynasty became the ruler of the entire country. After nine hundred years’ existence, the classical regime of the Chau Dynasty collapsed like a house of cards. The people enthusiastically welcomed the new dynasty which had brought about such prosperous conditions in its original territory. By a decree of the Chin Emperor, the Tsing- I'ieii system was abolished throughout the country. He ordered the destruction of the works of Confucius and his disciples. He subjugated the rulers of other States and united the country under one centralised despotism. Far off territories, like Tonking, Cochin China, Burma and even Central Asia were incorporated in the Chinese Empire which, during the reign of the Chin Dynasty, embraced more than three million square miles. It was during the reign of the Chins that the Great Wall of China was built to protect the country against the invasion of the barbarians from the north and the west. The country was divided into thirty-six provinces which were governed by officials appointed by the Emperor. An Empire like the Roman was built up. Roads were constructed, canals dug, not only for the movement of armies, but also for the expansion of trade. The short period of the reign of the Chin Dynasty can claim to be the proverbial Golden Age of China.
But the Chins raised their imperial structure too rapidly, — on a loose foundation. Unlike the Romans, they received little tribute from the conquered provinces. Territories outside China were conquered only in name. The Chinese power was not sufficiently consolidated to exact tribute from there. The Chins acquired an Empire which was economically exhausted and politically disrupted. The only bright spot was their original kingdom. Revolu- tionary measures, so successfully introduced thert, could not be applied easily to the rest of the country where the conditions were not nearly so favourable. The net con- sequence of the short period of their reign was extraordinary burden on the people. In addition to heavy taxation.
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
61
yet another restriction was imposed upon production. Hundred-thousands of people were employed for the con- struction of the Great Wall, as well as roads, canals and palaces. The influx of slave labour from abroad was not nearly so copious as in the case of Greece and Rome. Foreign territories conquered were not extensive enough. Labour necessary for the gigantic constructions could be found only by withdrawing it from agriculture. Con- sequently, the main branch of economy ivas nearly ruined. Owing to the absence, at any rate great shortage, of the beasts of burden, practically the entire social labour had to be applied to the cultivation of land, if this was to produce some surplus over and above what was necessary for the maintenance and reproduction of the people. Exhausted agriculture was hea\ily taxed in order to cover the cost of imperial constructions. It is recorded that the Emperor’s share in the produce of the land was increased by several times, and, in addition, an equally high poll-tax was levied. For the purpose of disarming the people during the great unrest under the Chau Dynasty, the production of iron and possession of horses had been reserved to the State. Chin Chi-huangti made the monopoly of the indis- pensable war materials still more severe. He increased the tax on iron to twenty per cent.^’*
Owing to the insufficiency of slave labour, the Chin rulers introduced the system of forced labour for public works. Their army was of half a million. In the construc- tion of the Great Wall alone, four hundred thousand men were employed. Another seven hundred thousand were employed in the construction of palaces, roads, canals, etc.^^ Altogether, more than a million and a half workers were withdrawn from production, and the constructions in which they were employed cost large amounts of money, raised by increasing taxes. In those days, the total population of the country was hardly twenty millions. Thus, about twenty-
** Mabel Ping-liua Lee, **Tlie Economic History of China”
Ibid.
62 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
five per cent of all the adults, including males and females, ivere taken out of production. The result was a great catastrophe which was inevitable. “Men worked hard on laige farming estates, and yet did not have enough to eat. Women span, and yet could not clothe themselves properly. Therefore, the people were fed up with the Chin Dynasty, and rose in revolt against it.“
The mighty Chin Dynasty was overthrown by a peasant revolt led by Chen Shen, himself a peasant. Very little is recorded about that Spartacus of ancient China. Only one chapter in the Book of Han deals with him. The exploited peasantry in those backward days were even less capable of building a new social order than they are to-day. Therefore, the rebellion overthrew the despotism of the Chins, but could not replace it by a better system. The country was plunged into a period of chaos and disorder, out of which feudalism grew. The fall of the Chin Dynasty occupies in Chinese history a place analogous to that of the dissolution of the Roman Empire in the annals of Europe. It closed the classical period, and opened up the feudal middle-age.
The small States subjugated by the Chins joined the rebellion ; upon the fall of the Empire, they regained their position as independent feudal principalities. After the short respite of only half a century, the country again became the scene of civil wars amongst feudal princes fighting for supremacy. “The people lost work, and there was a severe famine. They ate human flesh, and more than half the population perished.’’^*
Out of that dark background rose the new Dynasty of the Hans. But it also could not ease the situation for any length of time. The preconditions for the rise of feudalism had been created by the abolition c£ the tribal ownership of land — the Tsing Tien system. But owing to its narrow
” Qnoted from Kn Kin Tai-Pin-lin by Mabel Ping-hna lyce in »3»e "Sconomic History of China”.
>* The Book of Han.
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
63
basis, the birth-pangs of the new order were unusually severe and protracted. The insuiBBiciency of surplus product remained the fundamental cause of all difficulties. The product of agriculture, which was carried on almost exclusively with human labour, was hardly enough to meet the barest needs of society. The economic equilibrium was so unstable that it was dangerously dislocated by the slightest disturbance of normal conditions. Every war and every famine created a terrible economic crisis. Famine reduced the number of mouths to be fed, but the productive power of the nation was also reduced proportionately. And thanks to the caprice of Motlier Wang-ho, the ancient home of the Chinese was so often devastated by floods, that famine was rather the rule than an exception in the economic history of the country.
The first signs of production for sale were to be noticed towards the end of the Chau period (400 B.C.). The tribal chiefs levied taxes on commodities which were brought to the markets, or transported across their borders. When Mencius advised the abolition of that burden on handicraft, the king replied: can not manage with the tenth of the
product of the land. I can not abolish the border and market taxes."'*^ Later, trade was altogether forbidden by the State. In the literature of ancient China, there are volumes of laws restricting the freedom of the people to dispose of their goods at their own will.^* Even as late as the middle of the nineteenth century, the Government frowned upon trade, and traders were looked down upon. Heavy taxes were imposed on trade, and the methods applied for the collection of those taxes corrupted the entire administrative machinery.
When the Han Dynasty rose out of the chaos which had followed the dissolution of the Chin Empire, the country was completely exhausted. There was no reserve. Cannibalism, let loose by the chronic insufficiency of normal
Book of Mendtis.
R, Montgomery Martin, ‘ToUtica, Trade and Finance of China*'
64 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
foodstuff, further decimated the labour power of the country. Land, abandoned by the hungry and destitute masses, was seized by others who, in course of time, became feudal lords. But the creation of large landed estates did not increase production. There was great scarcity of labour for the cultivation of land. It is recorded that towards the end of the Han Dynasty (300 A.D.), the population was reduced by thirty per cent.^® The situation, indeed, facili- tated the concentration of landed property, so that feudal ownership could grow, but at the same time, it was unfavourable to the rise of serfdom. The landlords appro- priated as their share as much as half the produce of the land. That drove the peasants away from the land, and sharpened the economic crisis.
Continuous agrarian crisis, nevertheless, contributed to the development of handicraft. As a measure against famine, the first Han Emperor had legalised slavery. Parents were allowed to sell their children for bread. Children thus sold grew up as slaves. On the basis of slave labour, handicraft developed notwithstanding high taxes and other burdens. The general situation, however, was hardly improved. A minister of the Emperor Wen-ti exclaimed in wonder: ‘‘The surveyed land is not less to-day, and the number of people has not grown bigger than before. We should have greater surplus than in the olden days.’* He came to the conclusion that the contradiction resulted from the fact that more people were engaged in subsidiary occupations, and therefore agriculture was suffering.®® But flight from the land continued. It became so bad in the beginning of the Christian era that a con- temporary scholar-statesman, Chia Yi, sounded the alarm: “We must bring the people back to the land, and insist that workers and artisans of all sorts should return to the labour on land so that everybody can live on his own labour. Then there will be enough saving, and everybody
**The Boo^ of Han.
»• im.
THE STllUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
65
will be happy and satisfied/’^^ For encouraging the people to return to the land, the Emperor himself ploughed the garden of his palace and planted mulberry trees. Scholars of the classical school thundered against the concentration of land in feudal estates. Many plans were made to restrict their size. An edict of Emperor Ei-ti set the limit at 3000 mus^^ of land, and 200 slaves. The feudal lords were growing too powerful ; further growth of their power must be checked by the Emperor. The entire middle-age of Chinese history was characterised by that struggle between the Emperor and the ’andowning nobility.
Side by side with feudalism, there grew, out of the dissolution of the old order, yet anothet social force which was still more dangerous for despotism ; it was the trading class. The social character of the produce of agriculture was changed by the concentration of land in great estates, cultivated by slaves and serfs. A considerable part of the produce of primitive agriculture became commodity. The new class of traders appeared between the producer and the consumer. Through the control of the exchange of com- modities, the traders accumulated great wealth.
The ruling class naturally hated the traders. Abuse against them was the main theme of contemporary litera- ture. Chao Chor, a famous statesman of the Han period, contrasted the prosperity of the traders with the misery of the peasants. He wrote: ‘‘The merchants are richly and artistically dressed ; they live luxuriously ; they travel thousands of li on horseback, exercise great influence over dukes and princes.''^® Chao and others maintained that the trades people were bound to grow stronger and stronger, so long as the masses wandered away from the land.
The people had been liberated from land by the aboli- tion of the Tsing Tien system, which bound the peasant to the soil with the chains of blood relationships of the
« Jbi4.
•• One mu is equal to 6*74 acres.
Quoted by I^ee in **The Economic History of China**.
5
66 rev<!)lution and counter-revolution in china
patriarchal family. Wlien the oppression of the monarch and feudal lords became intolerable, the people could leave the land, to sell their labour power to those who would pay for their subsistence. Human labour, freed from the obligation of cultivating land, C'^ntributed to the growth of other forms of production. But these were not yet sufficiently expanded to meet the financial requirements of ihe State, which, as a matter of fact, derived little income from them. The surplus of the new forms of production accumulated in the possession of the traders. They were friendly with the nobles who participated in the profit. Ail the contemporary scholars, therefore, maintained that, for the financial stability of the State, the people should be brought back to the land, and recommended that taxes should be reduced for the purpose. Some of them went so far as to advocate the restoration of the Tsing Tien system.
In spite of all the efforts of the Han Emperors to limit the size of feudal domains, these kept on growing at the cost of the tillers of the soil, who, upon the abolition of the Tsing Tien system, had become owners of the land. Once created, private property has the tendency of accumulating in fewer and fewer hands. The exploitation of the peasants increased. Finally, a new blow once again disturbed the precarious balance of national economy established after decades of disorder. In the midst of that new crisis, the Emperor Wang Mang restored the Tsing Tien system as the panacea for all evils. Not only the feudal lords, but also the peasants resisted that reactionary step. Wang Mang was overthrown. The Han Dynasty was reinstated. Feudalism had come to stay.
Private property in land had become too deep-rooted to be abolished by an imperial decree. Although a reactionary measure, the restoration of the Tsing Tien system, however, was quite plausible. The princes of the Han Dynasty and their tributary nobles had taken posses- sion of the entire land. The peasants had become free owners of the land they cultivated only to be expropriated.
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
67
They no longer possessed any land ; they cultivated it as tenants, and paid the lords with half the produce. Many laboured as slaves for bare subsistence on the estates of the lords. Nevertheless, before long, Wang Mang was forced to amend his plan so as only to restrict the feudal domains, just as the Hans had tried to do formerly. But reinforced feudalism would not have its power curtailed, and tolerate any encroachment on its privileges. Therefore, the feudal lords overthrew the usuiper, even after he had withdrawn the decree abolishing private property in favour of the decayed system of triual ownership.
During the second Han Period feudalism further expanded. In that period, the trade with West-Asia, established previQRsly by the Shensi merchants, reached the Mediterranean. Material welfare gave a new impetus to the spiritual life of the nation. Scholars visited India, and Buddhism was officially introduced in China. But before long, triumphant feudalism came into conflict with handi- craft and trade, which contributed so much to the material welfare and spiritual re-birth of the nation. The growth of handicraift attracted labour from the land. In the long run, that process weakened national economy rather than strengthen it. The production of food-grain declined. On the other hand, manufacturing industry did not develop enough to produce for export, so that necessary food-grains could be purchased abroad. One crop destroyed by flood, and the perennial scarcity of foodstuff became a dreadful famine. The country was plunged into a new period of political unrest.
During the period of unrest, the feudal princes took to the war path. In their struggle for supremacy, the country Was divided into three kingdoms engaged in mutual hostili- ties. The weakened Han Dynasty went down in the chaos. During the centuries (200-588 A.D.) between the fall of the Han Dynasty and the re-union of the country under the Northern Chows of barbarian descent, China experienced the darkest period of her history. Bloody wars, barbarian
68 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
invasions, famine and depopulation were the characteristic features of that period. Flying before the barbarian invaders, the Chinese left their original home and emigrated en masse over the Yangtse to the South. They left the Northern home, which had been devastated by periodical overflows of the Yellow River, depopulated by recurring famines, and finally overrun by barbarian inva- sions. In the new territories of the South, they relapsed into the classical social order of patriarchal landownership. That was a reaction to the fearful experience of the period of feudal anarchy.
Since those remote days, the social structure of Southern China differs from that in the North. The foundation of the difference is the uneven development of private property in land and the divergent forms of social relation resulting therefrom. The mass emigration from the North created such an over-population in the South as prevented the rise of large feudal domains, although it could not altogether hinder the concentration of landed property. But the size of rent-bearing estates, leased out to tenants, was very much circumscribed by the conditions of the country. In the North, on the contrary, depopula- tion caused the rise not only of large feudal estates, but also of peasant farms of relatively considerable size.
The mass emigration left large feudal estates in the North not only without enough people to cultivate them, but also without owners. The landlords also had been killed off either in the civil wars or by the barbarian invaders. The barbarian conquerors from the North settled the wandering people on those extensive territories without clearly defining the relation of property. A sort of allodial property was created by that settlement. It eventually developed into peasant projHrietorship, which is found more frequently in the North than in the South. The decisive factor was the hind of the settlers. They were, not members of the ctmqueriii^ race which remained attached to the militsury profession ; they Mtest native Chinese. Cooc
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
69
sequently, their property right was not secure ; it was not derived from the right of conquest. In course of time, many of the settlers quietly reverted to patriarchal relations. Consequently, in the North, there developed side by side two forms of property in land ; they exist even to-day.
When in the sixteenth centuiy the country was re- united under the Northern Chows, the barbarian conquerors left intact the division of land introduced in the South by the Chinese emigrants. Nevertheless, the concentration of land continued, partly, as the inevitable consequence of objective conditions, ' :>nd, partly, through the interference of the king who wanted to establish his sovereignty. Finally, the next native Chinese dynasty of the Tangs intro- duced a system of taxation which tacitly legalised the position of the landlord. According to the new system, tax was to be determined by the size of the landed property and its produce. Formerly, the share of the State was taken from the family which, theoretically, was obliged to culti- vate a given piece of land in order to render a certain amount of service to the king. Every member of the family — man, woman and child — ^was counted as a head to be taxed. The doctrine underlying the old system of taxation was that the entire land, as the domain of the king, was equally distributed to .the people, grouped in families which cultivated the soil, partly, for their own subsistence and, pardy, for the king. The concentration of land in laige estates showed tliat the patriarch*^! relation of property had decayed. While the king still remained the sole legal owner of land, there had arisen a class which challenged the right reserved to him, namely, the monopoly of the property in land. The new system of taxation introduced by the Tang Dynasty legalised the conditions already in existence. Inasmuch as it legally freed the peasantry from the worn-out patriarchal boiRiage to the lani it facilitated the transfer trf property in land. Whoever could not pay the taxes, needed no longer to stick to the land and starve. He could give up the land, which passed on to the posses-
70 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
sion of the landlords. They either allowed the landless peasants to labour on their estates as half-slaves, half-serfs, or leased out the land to those who could pay the rent.
Under the new system, the burden on the peasants doubled ; they had to pay the tax to the Government and rent to the landlords. It is immaterial whether the tax levied by the State siill retained the character of primitive rent. Perhaps it did, and hence the ambiguity of the legal position of the landed property in China. On the other hand, the owners of large landed estates, who leased out their land to the peasants, embodied together the modern semi-capitalist tax-farmer as well as the mediaeval feudal lord. In any case, the growth of the system of land leased out by rent-receiving lords represented the destruction of royal monopoly of the property in land. The monopoly was no longer absolute, because the State must share it with a class which had smuggled itself between the king and the peasantry.
As long as the land belonged only to the king, the peasant, indeed, was not an allodial owner. But nor was he a tenant holding the land in dependence on another person. He was subject of the king, and cultivated the land practically for himself, so long as he delivered the king’s share. The theory of the royal ownership and equal distribution of land does not permit anybody to be driven out of land on some pretext. For, a strong tradition of primitive communism is incorporated in this theory, which is the ideology of social relations growing directly out of the dissolution of the tribal oiganisation. In contrast to that, tenancy is a very clearly defined and definitely limited right. It is connected with continued possession only when that is expressly provided in law. And that was never the case in China. It is not even so to-day. As a matter of fact, the tenant is always a tenant-at-will,“
Favoured by the system of taxation, feudalism devas-
^PoUodt and Maitlatid, “Bistory of Bsgiiah tawa*'.
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
71
tated the land. Peasants left the exhausted land, from which they could hardly eke out the barest subsistence. Unrestricted feudalism ruined national economy. The Sung Dynasty, which followed the Tang, again took up the struggle for limiting feudal possessions, and introduced the so-called “Modified Tsing Tien” system. The system of family-ownership was restored inasmuch as taxes were levied on heads as well as on the produce of land. But the peasant was no longer obliged to labour on the communal land for a specified time, in order to pay the share of the king. Now he was legally the possessor of his entire labour power, a part of which was, of course, to be devoted for the production of the surplus necessary For meeting the tax obligations. So, the patriarchal forms of social relations were associated with feudal exploitation in such a way as would hinder the expansion of feudal landed property. At last, the “Ideal State” of Confucius was realised.
After centuries of bitter struggle, despotic monarchy triumphed over feudal ambition. In course of the struggle, the claims had been so modified from either side, that it was finally possible to establish the permanent alliance of both as advocated by the Old Saga. The relation of property in land, established during the reign of the Sung Dynasty, remained in force not only up to the revolution of 1911, they continued essentially even under the Republic when the patriachal-feudal conditions were superimposed by the methods of capitalist exploitation. Consequently, there came into existence a social structure which could not be shaken except by destroying all the three elements entering into its being. The peculiarity of this fossilised social structure is the de facto existence and operation of private property in land which is not recognised fully by law. Many errors regarding the relation of classes in modem China result from this peculiarity.
Had Chipese society not attained the stage of feudalism, its breakdown would have been inevitable. It did reach there, but with such a heavy ballast inherited from the past.
72 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
as made the transition to the next higher stage a long and laborious process. Notwithstanding the immaturity of feudalism, Chinese society came to be subordinated to capitalist relations which, in their turn, were restricted by surviving feudal conditions. Oving to these overlapping processes of evolution, the present structure of Chinese society is so complex that its lost equilibrium cannot be restored through the revival of old relations and principles, indeed, not even by such a revolution as would leave its foundation of private property intact.
The system of family-ownership of land, with tax, representing a part of the produce, payable to the State and with the property in land theoretically still belonging to the State — that unmistakably is a remnant of patriarchal relations. The form of taxation however is clearly feudal. The State theoretically still being the supreme landlord, ground-rent coincides with tax. There exists private pro- perty in land, only it is reserved to the State. But given private property, its transfer from one hand to another cannot be prevented. So, even when the system of the distribution of land by the State was re-introduced, as under the Sung Dynasty, the process of concentration continued.
Finally, primitive forms of capitalist production grew out of the background ot those agrarian relations. Already in the beginning of the nineteenth century, the old strati- fication of the Chinese society was disturbed. The gradation was no longer as it had been previously, namely, the scholars, the peasantry, the artisans and the trader. But then, the merchants and the bankers had climbed up the social ladder, having been granted the place just below the scholars.** Moreover, the peasants had been relegated to the lowest rank, the artisans having had superceded them. The relation of property in land wm naturally affected by the growth of the capitalist mode of production which was reflected in those dislocations in social gradation. The
** Meadows, "The Ouneae and Their Kebellions’*.
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
73
legally established State-ownership of land was undermined by the practically existing private property. Agrarian pro- duce had come under the laws of commodity production. The peasants now could be driven out of the land which accumulated in the possession of the capitalists. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the scholars were often bankers, and most probably they had always owned land.**
There is enough evidence to the effect that the feudal nobility thrived rich and mighty during the Sung and Ming periods, when legally and theoretically the system of dis- tribution of land by the State was in force. The state of affairs was not materially changed during the short inter- vening period of Mongol invasion. The Ming Emperors were engaged in a hopeless struggle against the noble “landgrabbers”.** At the end of the Ming era, feudal estates were often larger than one million mu. Moreover, those domains included the largest part of the cultivated land of the entire country. The Manchus confiscated the possessions of the Chinese nobles. The confiscated land was handed over by the conquering dynasty to its soldiers and the eight tributary Tartar clans. The latter were residents in Peking. They leased out their possessions to the peasants. Even the soldiers received more land than they could cultivate. A part of their land, therefore, was also leased out. Consequently, tenancy came to be the characteristic feature of the agrarian relations of motiern China. About eighty per cent of the peasantry are tenants** holding the land either from the State or from private owners, under conditions which, in essence and often also in form, are feudal.
Until the seventeenth century, tax was levied ruth- lessly per capita. In course of time, that uneconomic system of taxation came in conflict with incipient capitalism. In 1713, the head-tax was replaced by land-tax as the main
njbid.
” I,ee, "The Bconomic History of China”.
•• The ‘fmrml of the Royal SocMy (Chines* Branch), No. 2,
1802/S3. '
74 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
source of State /evenue. From that time on, the object of taxation was no longer the individual, regarded as a chattel in possession of the ruling class ; tax became a charge on labour-power as commodity. The new tax was called ti4ing, which means, land and head tax. That part of the com- posite tax, which represented a charge on agricultural income, itself included all sorts of feudal levies. In addi- tion, there was tlie payment made instead of obligatory labour ; transit tax ; the payment for securing release from military service, and the extra tax levied for covering the deficit which often resulted when taxes were paid in kind.“® The lot of the tenants who held their land on lease from private owners was still worse. Beside the payments they had to make to the State through the landlords and local officials, the latter themselves levied still other charges which were indefinite and unlimited.’*®
This system of taxation represents pre-capitalist exploi- tation of the peasantry ; even to-day, it is largely m force. The entire surplus is taken away from tlie producer, and consequently he is deprived of the means to improve the methods of production. This form of exploitation has lowered the standard of living of the majority of the peasantry belpw the starvation limit. This extraordinary poverty of the bulk of population is the fundamental cause of China s backwardness. The accumulation of capital is circumscribed by the narrow margin of surplus which, consequently, hinders economic development.
According to the latest estimates, the minimum necessity of a family of five members could be covered by the produce of 4*7 acres of wheat-growing land in the North,
*• Hsieh Paochao, **The Government of China**.
** **In addition to rent, there is the imperial grain tax ; then, local oUcials levied taxes to meet the cost of Government transport, for the maintenance of higher inspecting officials, for the upkeep ^ roads and dykes, for patrolling highways, and endless other charges, for example for the constmcticm and repair of the village and city wails, fans, markets, theatres, field-watchmen, protection of sprhigs, snpi^ft of Idbods etc* Most of the local taxes are collected tSy the Villego head- man*'.— A, H. Smith, ^^The Chinese Village**.
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
75
or 1*7 acre of rice-growing land in the South. But 33 per cent of the peasant farms are on the average less than one acre each ; another 35 per cent less than 1*5 acres.^^ Thus, 68 per cent of the entire agricultural population live below the lowest level of subsistence. An investigation in four typical provinces led to the conclusion that the average annual income of 60 per cent of all the peasant families is 150 silver dollars or even less.'*^ In the opinion of the specialists of the Peking Medical College, the indispensable necessities of an a\erage peasan*^ family cannot be had for less than 185 dollars a year. The items of necessity taken into account are food (without meat, fish or eggs), 150 dollars ; clothing, 20 dollars ,* rent, light, medicaments, recreation, etc., 15 dol ars.
In 1918 (the last year for which some statistical materials are available), about 1500 million mu of land was under cultivation, employing about sixty million families.®® If the land was equally distributed, the share of each family would be 25 mu. But in reality, the average holding of sixty-eight per cent of those sixty million peasant families is much smaller than the minimum required to produce their barest subsistence. About fifty million peasant families hold approximately 300 million mu^ that is about one fifth of the entire cultivated area. Making allowance for the in- sufficiency of the statistical material, it can be concluded that by far the greater part of the cultivated land is in the possession of a small rent-receiving minority. Large landed estates are to be found even outside Manchuria and the Northern provinces. For example, in the maritime province of Kiangsu, there are landed estates as large as 300 thousand to 400 thousand mu. Smaller ones of the size of 80 to 40 thousand mu are very common.®^ In view of the extra- ordinary smallness of the average peasant farm, the pos-
Statistics of the Chinese Bureau of Economic Information.
*• Report of the International Famine Relief Commission, 1922.
»• Report ^ the Ministry of Agriculture, 1919.
Tenttre in China**, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Chinese l&ranch).
76 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
session of a few hundred mu constitutes landlordship, and a considerable part of the cultivated land is in the possession of such petty landlords.
The landlords, who still enjoy feudal rights and patriarchal privileges, also participate largely in capitalist exploitation. For example, a family possessing 400,000 mu of land in the neiglibouring province of Kiangsu, also has extensive trading and financial interests in Shanghai. It is the owner of the China Steam Navigation Company — a modern capitalist concern. And that is not an exception. Throughout the country, the landlords are also capitalists. They are all engaged in some trade or other, mostly in agricultural produce which they take over from the peasantry. The feudal-patriarchal relations serve the pur- pose of primitive capitalist accumulation.
In China, the transition from the feudal to the capitalist mode of production does not take place in the form of the process of the producer becoming a trader — a capitalist it takes place rather from the opposite direction — traders not connected with the process of production first appear as the medium for the circulation of commodifies, and later interfere in the process of production itself. This latter process, which obstructs free economic development, could be observed also in the earlier stages of capitalist develop- ment in Europe. It operated in certain industries of England and France until the middle of the nineteenth century. The difference is that China did not have the possibility of breaking the chain by which trades-capital circumscribes the growth of the capitalist mode of produC’ tion. Foreign intervention reinforced the position of the primitive capitalist traders of China who operated on the
•• '‘The translticm frota the feudal mode of production tahses place In a two-fold manner. The producer becomes a trader and capitalist . . . This is the really revolutionary way. Alternately, the produce passes directly to the possession of the trader. ^Ithqnfldi, hwitoricaHy. the latter also is the process of trSnsition ... by Itseu It does not bring libout the subversion of the old mode ptoductioii, vidricli it rather cemserves and retains as its own pre-conditions.** (Ear! Mant, **Oipltal*% Vol. HI, Tart I).
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
77
basis of feudal relations. The product of the labour of the Chinese peasants could come to the world market only through the intermediary of those traders. Chinese agri- culture thus came to be subjected to two forms of exploita- tion ; the capitalist mode of production was deprived of the possibility of growing within the limits of the semi-feudal, semi-capitalist relations.
The characteristic feature of feudal economy is that the larger part of the surplus p’^oducl of social labour is appropriated by the ruling class not for reinvestment in the process of production, but to be devoted to unproductive, paiasitic purposes. A higher mode of production can grow within the framework of feudal relations, when an increasing part of the surplus produce remains with the producer, thus enabling him to improve his means of production. There- fore, when production is not directly connected with land, that is, in the case of manufacture, feudal restrictions upon free exchange of commodities are still more rigorous. In course of the struggle, taking place for several centuries and covering a whole historical period — the middle-age — the productive forces, finally, break the cramping bonds of feudalism and blossom foyth in the capitalist social order. The duration and result of this historical struggle depends on the magnitude of the surplus that can be produced in the process of production still within the limits and under the restrictions of feudalism.
Under feudal conditions, the peasant works either as a free producer, a direct subject of the king, or as a serf on the feudal domain ; the product of his labour, over and above what is necessary for his barest subsistence, is taken away from him in the form of rent, tax or other feudal levies. The specific feature of feudalism is that the surplus value is realised directly through the appropriation of the entire surplus product. The production of surplus value becomes the foundation of the capitalist mode of production only then, when a part of the surplus is absorbed as {Mrofit, when surplus value is no longer realised in the simple form
78 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
of the direct appropriation of the entire surplus produce. Then the entire surplus product of social labour ceases to be the ntonopoly of the feudal landlord. Profit represents a loss for the landlord, whether the State or the feudal noble. There begins the struggle for the division of the surplus value.
When, under the given conditions of production, a relatively large surplus is produced, the share absorbed by profit is correspondingly large, and consequently, a broad foundation is laid for the rising capitalist mode of pro- duction.®®
The extraordinary insufficiency of the surplus produce of agriculture retarded the development of Chinese society. The main concern in China always was to have enough rice — the staple foodstuff. The measure of good govern- ment was the ability to keep a reserve of rice for bad days. The product of the entire social labour was hardly enough to ensure the subsistence and reproduction of the immediate producers. That is to say, the entire labour power was virtually socially necessary labour. The surplus labour, which could be performed in the normal process of pro- duction, was very narrowly limited by the conditions of production. The slow development of private property in China was caused by those peculiar conditions of produc-
“The general conditions for the existence of surplus value and profit . . , are : the immediate producers must work longer than the time required for (gaining the means) reproduction of their own labour power, of themselves. They must perform surplus labour. This is the subjective condition. But the objective (condition) is that they can perform surplus labour, that the natural conditions are such that a part of their labour time at their disposal suffices for their reproduction and subsistence as producers, that the production of the necessities for their life does not consume their entire labour time. The productivity of nature sets one limit, one point of departure, one basts. On the other side, another limit is set by the development of the social power of production of their labour. Regarded still more closely, since the production of food stuff is the primary condition of their life and of all production generally, the labour applied to that production, ffiat is to say, agricultural labour in the widest economical sense, Should be suffi- ciently productive, so that the entire labour time available is not ahsorDecr in the production of foodstuff for the immediate prodacers ; so Shat agricultural surplus labour and, consequently, agricultural surplus produce may he possible.” (Karl Marx, “CipitSl”, ved* lO, Fart 3.)
THE STRUCTl^RE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
79
tion ; under those conditions, surplus produce did not represent normally performed surplus labour, but forced labour. In other words, a part of the socially necessary labour had to be applied to overcome the natural restric- tions on surplus production. The result was extreme poverty of the masses, and the permanent unstability of national economy. The most characteristic feature of the -situation was recurring famines and civil wars which, in their turn, often destroyed the larger part of the population.
The fluctuation of population is a remarkable feature of the Chinese history. In the first Han Period, feudalism prospered under the orderly conditions reestablished after the chaos which followed the defeat of the Chin Revolution. The population rose to sixty millions. During the following period of Wang Mang reaction, it fell to twenty-one million, and rose again to fifty million towards the end of the second Han period. During the civil wars of the third century A.D. the population sank to the record depth of eight millions. In the next century, it gradually went up to sixteen millions, and later to forty-six millions in course of several hundred years. In the tenth century, during the reign of the Sung Dynasty, the population again fell to twenty-one million. After a steady rise up to forty-five millions, it suddenly went down again to thirteen millions in a few decades. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century, the population remained relatively stable ; the fluctuation was within a few millions ; the general tendency was upwards. During the years of the downfall of the Ming Dynasty, it again declined to twenty-one million. After the establishment of the Manchu rule, there was no backward movement of population.®’^ Hist^orical investiga- tion reveals the fact that the periodical decline of popula- tion was always caused by famine, which again either followed or preceded a civil war.
These figures, deduced from a laig^e mass of historical
Economic History of China'*. All the figures are giTen in the nearest round number.
80 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
material, prove one thing. Until the eighteenth century, the level of production in China was so low as did not insure even the most minimum means of subsistence for the immediate producers themselves. The land was fruit- ful ; but devastating floods rendered large areas unworthy of cultivation for long periods. And behind the tragic scene, there always remained the fundamental weakness of the Chinese civilisation.
The scarcity of the beasts of burden in the North, and their absence in the South, created conditions in which virtually the entire labour time had to be employed for the production of the means for the barest subsistence of the people. The situation was further aggravated by the fact that in the olden days, it was a State monopoly to use horses and oxen for military purpose. Therefore^ agriculture was not only dependent mainly on human labour ; the absence of cattle also diminished the fertility of land. Even to-day, in the South, cattle is rarely employed in agriculture. Milk, butter and cheese are things seldom to be found on the Chinese table.®® The dependence of agriculture exclusively on human labour strengthened the position of the patriarchal family. The absolute right dt the father over the children was recognised by law, in order to prevent the young people from wandering away from land,®®
The structure of the present-day Chinese society is the result of the conditions of production which prevailed in the earlier stages of its development. The conditions were not favourable for accumulation. For a long time, right
•* labour is spent for the production of fodder, unless that can also serve the purpose of human subsistence. Horses are seldom used for luxury or military purposes, for travel or for the transport of
foods; but mules, camels, ass and goats are used on the north of the 'angtse for transport and other purposes. ... In the southern and eastern provinces, all animals are rare. The transport of goods and passengers is done in boats or by human beings. The natives do not use butter, milk or cheese. The few cattle find their i^ed on the isasteland round the village,** (Wiltiams. ‘*The Middle Kib^dom**.)
•• **The patriarch of three or four gcneratioiis compels his sons and |Tand<diildren to stay with him; tfieir houses must be next to his, they with their families constitute a comnmn sodal unit/*
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
81
up to the eighteenth century, normal production left a very narrow surplus. The part of the produce of social labour absorbed by pre-capitalist rent, taxes levied by the despotic State, and feudal charges, was not surplus product ; it represented very largely forced labour. Finally, there developed primitive capitalism on the basis of the exploita- tion of intensified forced labour^
»
One of the causes of antagonism between capitalism and feudalism is that capitalist profit encroaches upon the feudal landlord's rent That is specially the case when the pre-capitalist land rent directly represents the entire surplus produce. Since primitive capitalism grew in China as a social factor necessarily connected with feudal relations, it was not absolutely antagonistic to the old mode of produc- tion. It only placed a new burden on the process of produc- tion already so very heavily encumbered. In mediaeval China, nascent capitalism was inseparably dependent on the feudal mode of production. It is so even today. In the beginning of the capitalist development in Europe also,, this was characteristic of trades capital. The oriental market, discovery of America, influx of precious metals from Mexico, and the plunder of India opened a new way before European capitalism which, consequently, could free itself from the bondage of feudalism, and the bourgeoisie only thereafter began the decisive struggle for political power. The pioneers of the Chinese bourgeoisie found themselves in a different situation ; therefore, they could not travel the way of their more fortunate European compeers, and before long became helpless victims of plundering invaders.
The collection and transport of the Government's share in the product of agriculture stimulated the growth of trades capital in China. In the fifteenth century, a part of the taxes was paid in money, at least formally/® But by far the greater part of the State revenue was collected then
** Cbea Shao-]i:waxi, "The System of Taxation in China".
6
82 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
and later in kind. That is done even to-day ; and since even to-day a large part of the tribute, taken in the form of rent or taxes, represents forced labour, the product of this forced labour should be taken away from the producer somehow as early as possible that is to say, immediately upon the harvesting of the crops. Should time be allowed for the crops to be transformed into money, one would always run the risk of their being consumed at least partially. Always there is a great hole to be filled up. Therefore, the Government must collect the largest part of the revenue in kind, as soon as the harvest is over, if it wants to secure what, in its opinion, is its share. Then, there is the antagonism between the State officials, who usually are also landlords and big merchants, on the one hand, and petty traders, on the other. Thanks to the system of payment of taxes in kind. State officials make a threefold profit: firstly, from the monopoly of the grain trade which they exercise through that system ; secondly, from the transport of a part of the grains collected in pay- ment of taxes to the provincial and national capitals ; thirdly, from the exchange of the rest for money. Through this system, the feudal officials dominate the entire economic life of the nation, and they do so in the interest of trades capital.'*^ Payment of taxes in money would place the small traders in the position to break the feudal-capitalist mono- poly. They would have the possibility of buying the grain directly from the small peasantry.
Since 1919, there is no Central Government for the entire country. Therefore, the budget of the Peking Government has no real significance. In the earlier years of the Republic, the situation was hardly any better. Yet, in the absence of more adequate and reliable information,
** ‘'The product of land must support all Government officials, mer- diants, all Tartar families, who hold the land in some or other form of feudal vassalship, and all the farmers who do not do any woTk . . . Aaiuisitlon of land is the most popular means for makings capital pro- ductive; and throughout the East, there is no place where the nght of landowhership is not respected.** (Montgomery Martin, “Trade, Einance and Sodety in Oiina^*,)
THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE SOCIETY
83
the budget of that period can be taken for an approximate representation of the situation. In that, no less than sixty per cent of the State revenue is derived from taxes which are delivered to the monopoly of the reactionary feudal- capitalist alliance. With the exception of the salt tax, practically all the other items of taxation fall directly or indirectly on agriculture, and are paid largely in kind.
Economic backwardness has hindered the development of the modern means of transport, with the exception of the modest beginnings made primarily for the urgent necessities of imperialist trade. The result of this back- wardness of the means of transportation is the territorial splitting of natural economy which again hinders the rise of a modern centralised State. The country is divided into a number of isolated local markets monopolised by land- owning and trading State officials. Thanks to the penetra- tion of Imperialism, these isolated markets, while still founded on semi-feudal production, have become connected with the world market. The semi-feudal agrarian produc- tion has been drawn into the sphere of the most modern capitalist exploitation. Finally, out of this process, there has arisen a class, which tries to introduce real capitalist mode of production in China's national economy. In con- sequence of the rise of the modem bourgeoisie, the social structure of urban areas stands in sharp antagonism to the rest of the country which still remains under feudal- patriarchal domination. But the bourgeoisie, though they possess modem means of production in the cities, cannot give a revolutionary expression to the antagonism between the capitalist city and the feudal village. Because they themselves are still rooted in the econonty of the village with which they are connected as the intermediary between the world market and the internal markets of China. This contradiction, inherent in the very existence of the Chinese bourgeoisie, is the fundamental problem of modern China. As this problem results historically from the social structure oi the country, its solution can be found only in the
84 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
complete subversion of the established social order as a whole.
The feudal-patriarchal property in land is over- burdened by capitalist exploitation. The larger part of the accumulation taking place therefrom, flows out of the country as imperialist tribute. The result is a fossilised social system, embracing simultaneously manifold social relations which appeared successively ever since the dawn of civilisation. They are grown into, and overlap, each other. Consequently, one of them cannot replace the others, even when it represents a progressive tendency. Capitalism, for example, cannot destroy the feudal relations without undermining its own foundation. That has been proved by the events since the Revolution of 1911, and specially since the rise of the Nationalist Government of Canton. The reconstruction of the Chinese society cannot be carried through by a class which itself is rooted in the established conditions. That can and will be done by a class which is the heir of the revolutionary tradition of all the great social upheavals of the past, which will lose nothing from the complete dissolution of the present con- ditions beyond all reforms, but will win a whole world. Therefore, the structure of the new Chinese society in the throes (rf birth will neither be capitalist nor neo-Confucian, as idealised by the petty-bourgeois nationalists. That can only be a Communist society — the creation of the working class.
CHAPTER III
THE NATIONAL ECONOMY OF CHINA
China proper, with her twenty-one provinces including Manchuria, has an area of 1,81>6,500 square miles. The area of the entire country, previously called the Chinese Empire, and which (excepting Outer Mongolia) still nominally belongs to the Republic, is 4,278,350 square miles. The population of China proper, according to the latest available information, is 436 millions, and that of the so-called Greater China (including Tibet, Turkestan and Mongolia) is 447 millions.^ So, the density of population is approximately 220 per square mile in China proper, and 100 if the outer regions are taken into the calculation. The distribution of popuplation in China proper itself is also not uniform. For example, in the territories adjoining Shanghai and Nanking, the density is as high as 875 per square mile, that is, higher even than in Belgium, the most thickly populated country in the world. The pressure of population is equally great in Canton. The impression gathered at these places, frequently visited by foreigners, is the basis of the prevailing notion that China is an over- populated country. In contrast to the high pressure in those places, the north-western province of Kansu has a population of 47 per square mile, and the south-western province of Yunan, of 67 per square mile.
The most characteristic feature of the Chinese national economy is the disproportionate distribution of social labour. An abnormally large portion 4 absorbed in the production of food. In the countries which are equipped with the modern means of production, on the average, thirty-five per cent of the total social labour is employed in the food producing sector of national economy. In
* Report of the Chinese Post Office,
86 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
China, the proportion is as high as eighty-five per cent. Yet, China is not a food-exporting country. On the con- trary, she imports a considerable amount of food-stuff, and the amount has been increasing 4ately. In 1915, it was seventeen per cent of the total import. In 1925, it was twenty-four per cent ; in 1927, it was tyenty-seven per cent.^
In view of the proverbial intensiveness of Chinese agriculture, it appears anomalous that China should import food. More than one crop is raised on the larger part of the cultivated land. The rice-lands of the south are naturally very fertile. The amount of labour the Chinese peasant puts into the cultivation of land is many times greater than in any other country. It has been estimated that the surface of the cultivated soil in China is actually treated several times a year with human hands to the depth of about fifteen inches.® This may sound fantastic ; but there is enough truth in it to indicate how hard the Chinese peasant labours to make the land bear fruit. Foreign observers have often admiringly written about the ‘'amount of efficient human labour cheerfully given for a daily wage of fifteen cents U. S. currency.''^ The world renowned habit of putting a fabulous amount of labour in the tillage of soil has been instilled in the Chinese peasant by the conditions of production which prevailed in the country from the very dawn of civilisation. In the classical past, imperial injunction to the people was: “Keep your lands clean, manure them richly, and make a farm resemble a garden.*’® Ever since, the Chinese peasant has abided by that injunction ; so much so that it is correctly observed that agriculture in China is rather kitchen-gardening than agriculture in the wider sense of the term.
In spite of the primitivencss of the mode of cultivation,, the productivity of soil in China does not compare very
• Keport of the Inspector General of Maritime Customs, 1928.
• F. tontoe, “China ; A Kation in Evolution*'.
• F. H. King. “Farmers of Forty Centa^ies*^
*‘CSmcsc Classics**.
THE NATIONAL ECONOMY OF CHINA
87
unfavourably with other countries. This, of course, is a relative statement, meaning that the produce of a given unit of land in China is not always less than in other countries, if the labour employed in the process of produc- tion is not taken into consideration, if it is measured not by value, but by volume. The average }ield for the wheat crop in the United States of America is fifteen bushels per acre ; in China, it is about twenty-five bushels. It has been calculated by experts that, in 1900, the produce of a square mile of land in the United States could maintain only sixty-one consumers (exclusive of animals employed in the process of production) ; in China, it supported 1783.® This explains the great difference in the standards of living in the two countries compared. Nevertheless, it shows, making sufficient allowance for possible exaggeration, that the pro- ductivity of the soil in China is not lower than that required for maintaining her population on a tolerable standard of living. In other words, China should not import food to meet the very limited requirements of her population. Still, she does. Why? The reason is that Chinese agri- culture is very intensive, but it is not extensive. Only a small fraction of the arable surface of the country is cultivated. That being the case, all the calculations showing a high productivity of Chinese agriculture are misleading. They do not present a true picture of the situation.
The total area of arable land in China proper (excluding the vast regions of Mongolia, Tibet and Turkestan) has been estimated as between 800 to 900 million acres.^ But the area actually under cultivation has never exceded one third of the total. If the outer regions are taken into the calculation, the proportion has always been not more than fifteen per cent. Approximately, the area' under cultivation was 150 million acres in 1890, 266 in 1914, and 233 in 1918, The statistical data for the subsequent years are very
• • **The Hconomic History of
* King, ''Farmers of Forty Centuries**.
*38 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
incomplete ; but the tendency appears to be towards decline.®
It appears to be paradoxical that, in a predominantly agricultural country, such a small portion of the total arable land should be actually under cultivation. Plenty of land is available for cultivation. Labour also is apparently abundant. There has been a steady increase of population ever since the seventeenth century. The peasants are highly skilled in making the land bear fruit in their primitive way. Yet, only a small fraction of the tillable land is made productive ; and the fraction is so small that its relatively high rate of produce cannot support the population of the country even at a very low standard of living. The reason of this paradox is to be found in the conditions of agri- cultural production in China. Land is cultivated exclusively with human labour. Bovine animals are very rare. There is practically no reliable statistics about live-stock. It has, however, been estimated that the number of bovine animals — horses, cattle, mules, asses, all told — does not exceed twenty-four millions in China proper.® Five millions of them are alone in Manchuria ; consequently, the supply for the rest of the country is very mekgre. It is approximately one head per twenty people. The comparison with a few other countries, chosen at random, shows how extremely poor China is in live-stock, so essential for the cultivation of soil. This is a great handicap for an agricultural country.
Germany has one head of bovine animal for each three people ; Denmark one for one ; Spain one for 3-6 ; France one for 2*3 ; Great Britain one for 4*7 ; Hungary one for five ; Italy one for five ; Holland one for 3*5 ; Yugoslavia one for 2*4 ; Poland one for 2*5 ; Rumania one for 2*8; and India one for 1-9.^®
The scarcity of live-stock places great limitations on the method of cultivating the soil in China* Even the
• Report of the Chinese Government Bureau of Economic Infotmeh turns,
• D. K. Wen, “China's Industries and Finance”.
China Year Book, 1928.
THE NATIONAL ECONOMY OF CHINA
89
priiAitive wooden plough is not the common tool, spades being frequently used instead. When the plough is at all used, it is often drawn by human beings. Under these conditions, it takes twenty-four days (of twelve or more hours) of human labour to raise one acre of wheat. “ In the United States of America, the labour time required for the same purpose is only two days of less duration. Taking the mean between the extreme backwardness of the Chinese condition, on the one hand, and the tiiost advanced mode of production in the United States, on the other, it can be reasonably calculated ihat the cultivation of soih in China absorbs eight to ten times more social labour than it should under normal conditions. Consequently, more land cannot be brought under cultivation, although plenty of it is available, and the limited area of cultivated land must support many more people than it normally could. The chronic poverty of the peasant masses, and the incredibly low general standard of living, are the result of such a state of national economy. The proverbial intensiveness of Chinese agriculture means the obligation of the peasants to put in the greatest amount of labour in making the smallest area of land bear the largest possible quantity of food. The cultivation of land, taking place under such unfavour- able conditions of production, absorbs practically the entire social labour, thereby restricting the free development of other industries.
The natural and historical limitations upon agricultural production could be overcome through cattle-raising and the introduction of modern machinery in the cultivation of the soil. That, however, has been done until now on a very Insignificant scale. In the past, the feudal-patriarchal relation of property in land deprived the peasant practically of the entire surplus product which, under the given unfavourable conditions of production, was very meagre. Even now the relation has hardly changed. The peasant
“ Year Booh of the International Agricultural Institute, 1928.
90 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
has no means to improve his mode of production. He cart buy neither live-stock nor modern implements. In course of time, the small surplus product of agriculture ceased to be the monopoly of the feudal-patriarchal landlord (in- dividual or the State). Trading^ capital became an important factor of national economy, and appropriated a part of the surplus value as profit. Capital thus accumulated, however, did not revolutionise the mode and means^^f production. To do so, is not in the nature of trading capital.” Instead of freeing the peasantry from the feudal-patriarchal bondages, it operates on the background of the old social relation, thereby increasing the exploitation of the producing class. The profit of trading capital represents a part of the surplus value produced under pre-capitalist conditions of production. Therefore, trading capital does not introduce really capitalist means and mode of production which are sure to disrupt its social basis. As long as the entire surplus produce of the peasants’ labour remains in the control of the feudal-patriarchal landlords and the trading bourgeoisie, it is not possible for agriculture to be improved through cattle-raising and the introduction of modern machinery.
From the very olden days, handicraft developed in China, but only as a subsidiary to agriculture. The peasant, having to devote practically the whole of his labour power to the production of food, the growth of handicraft was bound to be very slow. All his surplus produce taken away from him, the peasant could not develqj into a free artisan. It has been shown in the previous chapter how the prorass was discouraged, and, when necessary, positively checked
(trading capital) cannot by do much for the overthrow of the old mode of Production, but rather preserves it and uses it as
its premise The method is everywhere an obstacle to "'the real
tsapttalist mode of production, and declines with the development of the latter. Without revolutionising the mode of productioft, it deterio- imte# merely the condition of the direct peddncers, fmnslo^ng i^em into mere wage-wmrkers and proletarians under worse conditiotis thim Off those ^ho have already been placed hnder the Immediate control of e^tat, and absorbs dieir surplus labour on the basis of the did mode cl pioduction/* (Karl Mam, **Caintor», ITot Ht, F, m, American oditton).
THE NATIONAL ECONOMY OF CHINA
91
by the feudal-patriarchal ruling class. Originally, handi- craft production was for use. The peasant grew cotton on his homestead, and his womenfolk spun and wove. Other articles of primitive necessity, and rudimentary tools for the tillage of the soil, were also manufactured by the peasants at home. But in course of thue, in spite of all difficulties and obstructions, handicraft production ceased to be exclusively for use. It began to be exchanged ; first inside the village, and then between illages. Eventually, the self-sufficient village became a thing of the past. Although handicraft still remained, to a large extent, closely allied with agriculture, most of the artisans being primarily, at least partially, peasants, its social character changed. The produce of labour, performed under pre- capitalist conditions, became commodities for exchange through the intermediary of trading capital.
A very small section of handicraft was, however, separated from agriculture, to become an independent factor of national economy. At present, in the national economy of China, handicraft occupies a place of importance only next to agriculture. Still it remains largely in the state of semi-dependence upon the latter. Most of the artisans are still peasants, subject to feudal-patriarchal social rela- tions, although an increasing portion of their produce finds its way to the market — not only national, but international — as commodity. It is the case not only with what they produce as artisans, but with the produce of their labour as a whole.
It is estimated that about ten million people are employed in handicraft production.*® Compared with the total population of the country, it is a very small number. Obviou^y, it is the number only of the u^ban artisans, who are completely divorced from agj^ulture and produce eirclusively for exchai^. The greater part of the Chinese handicraft productimi still takes fdace not in urban work-
Report of the Nanking School of AgHcaltnre,
92 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
shops, but in the village cottage, that is, in the home of the peasant, the whole family usually performing the labour. As a rule, however, the raw material is no longer produced by the same people. It is supplied by others who do not directly participate in the process of production, but control it in one way or other. I
Silk is the main product of Chinese handicraft. At present, manufactured and raw silk constitutes twenty per cent of China’s export trade. Steam filatures have been established at Shanghai, Canton, Hankow and other smaller places. But about half of the silk is produced (reared and worked up into fabrics) by the peasants in their home. The average total production recently has been 200,000 piculs^^ a year. (One picul is equal to 60-5 kilos). About three- fourth of the quantity is exported.” Thus, the characteristic feature of the Chinese national economy is that commodities produced under very backward conditions of production have to compete in the capitalist world market. The result of this process is disastrous. It causes such a redistribution of labour in the process of production as pauperises the producing masses. They are completely proletarianised, subjected to the worst kind of capitalist exploitation, while still remaining in feudal-patriarchal bondage.
The total value of the foreign trade of China increased from 1000 million taels in 1918 to 2000 million in 1926. During the same period, the value of export grew from 480 millions to 850. The great expansion in value does not represent a true picture of the situation. It was largely due to the drop in exchange rates. During the period under review, the gold value of the tael depreciated nearly by fifty per cent. So, in reality, the export trade of China remained stationary during the period.” Nevertheless, the volume itself is considerable j^hen it is kept in mind that dtuii^ the same period the productive capadty of the country did
Report of tMe MltUstry of AgricuUurg md Commifce, |#1S.
” The Chinese Bureau of tnformaitiens.
** Report on the Foreign Trade of CMmu, tIUB.
THE NATIONAL ECONOMY OF CHINA
95
not improve appreciably. The situation is better under- stood from an analysis of the export trade.
China's main exports are silk, tea, beans (and their pro- duct^), oil-seeds, animal products (skins, hides, fur and wool), cotton and minerals (antimony, iron ore, mtmganese etc.). The great bulk of the export trade is covered by the products of agriculture and allied industries. The area under cultiva- tion having not extended, the method of agriculture having not improved, and the mode of production in the allied industries having remained in the same primitive condition, there could not be any substantial increase in the produc- tion of these commodities. Therefore, a relatively large volume of export, which expands steadily though not rapidly, means that contact with the world market drains out of China not only her small surplus product, but a considerable portion of her necessary produce. This does not always take place in a direct way, but through a redistri- bution of labour, not from a backward to a higher mode of production, but inside the same process of production. In other words, the exigencies of the world market shift a large volume of social labour in China from the production of food to the raising of non-food crops. That represents an encroachment upon China’s necessary production. Owing to the given conditions of production, eighty-five per cent of soci2d labour must be devoted to the production of food necessary for the maintenance of the entire population; there- fore, the labour withdrawn from food production represents a corresponding inroad upon necessary production.
This can be illustrated by facts. During the period under review, beans and other oil-seeds contributed more to the expansion of Chinese export than any other item. At the end of the period, they constituted twenty-three per cent of the total export. Dutrir® the period, in which these non-food agricultural products increased their share in the export trade, the import food-stuff increased Correspondingly. This proves that the labour for the raising of beans and oil-seeds was procured by withdrawing it from
94 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
food production. Thus, the demands of the world market caused a redistribution of labour in China in direct anta- gonism to her own elementary interests. China imports manufactured articles. She must pay for them by exporting goods in exchange. Owing to the backwardness of the mode of production, her exports contain many more units of labour than required for the manufacture of her imports ; so much so that, in spite of the inroad upon her necessary production, she cannot export enough to cover the import. Ever since her “free” contact with the world market, the balance of international trade has always been unfavourable for China. This adverse balance represents her indebted- ness— ^foreign capital invested in the country.
During the last three quarters of a century, ever since her doors were forced open to international commerce, the foreign trade of China has expanded to very large dimen- sions. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the total value was hardly over 100 million taels ; the present value, calculated at the exchange rate of that period, is around a thousand million taels. There is absolutely no reason to believe that this huge growth of foreign trade has been caused by the development of production in China. Modern industry constitutes an insignificant sector of the Chinese national economy. China produces about twenty-five million tons of coal per year — hardly hundred pounds per head of her population. The quantity of iron ore extracted was 1,900,000 tons in 1920. Later on, it declined to 1-5 millions. The amount erf pig-iron produced was 427,000 tons in 1920 ; it declined to 370,000 tons in 1925. The production of steel is practically negligible, about 100,000 tons per y«ir.*^ The development of the modern means of transport inside the country is equally restricted. There are hardly 8,000 miles of railways and no mtnre titan a thousand miles of road suitable for any kindi of vehicular halic. Cotton textile, and partially silk, are tite only
" R4^t m Ou Foreign Trade of CMm, l98a.
THE NATIONAL ECONOMY OF CHINA
95
branches of industry in which an appreciable expansion of production Kas taken place. Of these, the bulk of expan- sion has taken place in cotton texitle, which contributes very litde to the export trade.
The total value of goods exported from China in 1927 was 940 million taels. Of that, rwehty millions were covered by coal, twenty five millions by articles under the heading “ores, metal and manufactures thereof”, and forty millions by factory products. All togeflier these items com- posed about 10 per cent of the entire export trade. The remaining ninety per cent of the export was supplied by industries in which the mode of production still remains very largely primitive, and consequently whose productivity could not possibly have increased in correspondence with the expansion of export trade. Well over fifty per cent of the entire export is covered by agricultural and pastoral products. The production in this sphere, except in the case of beans and oil-seeds, has 1 not increased. The next item is silk, providing 168 millions of the export trade. But silk manufacture has also not expanded appreciably. On the other hand, tea has practically disappeared from the list of Chinese exports. Previously, it used to be a laige item.
Evidently, export trade has not expanded on the basis of an increasing production of commodities. The expan- sion of trade in China represents transfer of the entire surplus produa from the possession of the producer to the control of the trader. Not only is the producer deprived of his entire surplus produce, but heavy inroads are made even upon his necessary production. The surplus value produced, Aerefore, contains a large amount of forced labour ; that is to say, capitalist exploitation takes place on the basis of precapitalist production. Under such circum- stances, the primary producer has no chance of ever growing -mto a capitalist. Consequently, real capitalist development —-revolution in the means and mode df production, d<»troy- ing old social relations — is impossible.
“01*10 Y0ar Book, 1028.
96 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
The economic development of China is hindered from two sides : By the feudal-patriarchal elements in her social structure, and by imperialist intervention. Native trading capital is the connecting link between the twin forces of reaction. The natural resources of China are so great that,, once these mutually auxiliary forces of reaction are eliminated, her national economy can develop by big strides, easily overcoming the defective natural conditions of pro- duction. With an extensive application of the modem mechanical means of production, the productive capacity of labour can be immensely increased. In that caise, the proportion of social labour absorbed in the necessary pro- duction will be greatly reduced ; labour will be withdrawn from the production of food without injuring the elemen- tary interests of society. Not only will land now under cultivation be worked with much less labour, making it available for other industries ; the land at present lying waste will be made to bear fruit. The result will be an immense increase in the per capita rate of agricultural production ; and the surplus in that basic sector of national economy will lay a broad foundation for the growth of manufacturing industries.
Conventional economists ascribe all the miseries of China to her supposed over-population. It has been shown that the theory of over-population is a myth. China has a very latge population ; but she is not over-populated. If all the arable land is cultivated, a much larger population can, be maintained. When labour employed in the cultivation of the soil will be reduced through the introduction of machinery, her teeming millions will be the greatest asset of China's national economy. The extreme backwardness of China’s national economy, the dire poverty of her masses, due not to the supposed over-pe^wlation, but to the most primitive exploitation trf labour ; as a miutcr (d fact, to an- inaudible wastage sochd labour which is the Mmme of all national wealth.
A few facts about the natural resources of China indi-^
THE NATIONAL ECONOMY OF CHINA
97
cate the potentialities of her national economy. Possession of coal and iron is the essential condition for modem economy. China has large deposits of both the minerals. According to the latest geological survey, China’s coal deposits amount to 217,000,626 million tons, of which 43,953 million tons are anthracite. Ircfei ore deposits have been estimated at 956,180 million tons, containing, on the average, about forty-five per cent of metal.^® At present, China has the practical monopoly of the world antimony supply. She is also the latgest producer of tungsten. Her petroleum reserves have been roughly estimated at 10,000 million tons. When to these basic materials are added tin, copper, manganese and other materials of secondary importance, it cannot be doubted that China is completely fitted with all the conditions to modernise her national economy very rapidly, as soon as it is free from the existing restrictions, partly of historical, and partly of external nature.
The question of capital needed for rapid industrial development of the country has often been raised. It is maintained that China cannot become a modern industrial country without the aid of foreign capital. The corollary to this theory is that, in return for the aid, she must accept political subservience to the more advanced countries. The lack of capital has been taken for granted by the leading Chinese themselves. For example. Sun Yat-sen made a fantastic scheme of industrialising China with Capital ^borrowed abroad. Only in the year before his death, he came to understand the implications of his ill-conceived policy of modernisation. But there is room ior doubt that he really changed his belief in the helpful r61e of foreign capital. The Nanking Nationalist Government proposes to carry out the scheme of economic reconstruction, and it is Irankly in favour of a free flow of foreign capital. Experience, however, should teach the Chinese a different
Survey of CMm,
7
98 REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN CHINA
lesson. Foreign capital will not help China to solve her problem. On the contrary, freedom from its yoke is the essential condition for a really free economic development.
The capital required for the modernisation of China’s national economy is available in the country. A considerable amount of it is accumulated in the possession of the trading class. The native joint stock banks alone are capitalised at 560 million silver dollars, about sixty per cent of which amount is actually paid up^” Moreover, a large amount of Chinese capital is employed in foreign trade. It is deposited with the foreign banks. There still remain the small, but very numerous, private credit institutions. Their resources are not negligible. Practically the entire internal trade passes through their hand ; consequently, they reserve a substantial share of the surplus of national economy. Although an increasing part of this capital is finding invest- ment in modern industrial concerns, by far the greater bulk is still tied up with such unproductive employments as trading in commodities produced in largely pre-capitalist conditions, usury and landholding. If that great bulk of the capital resources are made available for productive industrial investment, China’s dependence upon foreign capital will be very much reduced. The very fact of ^such a displacement of capital from the unproductive to produc- tive employment will free the forces of national economy from all restrictions.
The basic restriction upon the free development of the CSiinese national economy is the feudal-patriarchal structure of society. Owing to the fact that the wealth accumulating in their possession represents the value created by labour performed within the limits of that structure, indeed very largely thanks to that structure, the Chinese middlemen cannot transform their wealdi into capital; they cannot invest their wealth ftnr develc^ing such modes of produetkm m will surely dinupt their own social foundation.
Year Soak. im.
THE NATIONAL ECONOMY OF CHINA
99
These deep-rooted contradictions of the situation render it impossible that the modernisation of Chinese national economy, in a broad sense, should take place within the limits of the capitalist system, that is, on the basis of the private ownership of the means of production. The possibility of any alternative line of devfiopment is rejected by those who believe that the modern mode of machine production is inseparable frmn the capitalist system. Since it has been so until now, it is assumed that for the modernisa- tion of her economy, China must adopt the capitalist system. The existence of the native trading class, the so-called compradores, as the dominant factor in Chinese national economy, is necessary for the foreign exploitation of the country. As long as a country’s national economy is dominated by trading capital, it cannot experience a real capitalist development. Therefore, modernisation of Chinese national economy is conditional upon its freedom from the control of trading capital. The forces of real capitalism, namely, the revolutionising modes of production, being too weak to disrupt the influence of reactionary trading capital, the task must be accomplished by some other factor, should China’s economic life be freed from the bondage of mediaevalism. The task of modernising China’s national economy must be undertaken by the social classes which suffer most from the prevailing conditions. The producing classes must assert their ownership of the accumulated surplus production of national economy which has been expropriated by the parasitic, reactionary, trading class. Thus will be found the capital necessary for the development trf China’s national resources. She will modernise her national economy with a free and extensive application of the mechanical means of production only by disrupting the social basis of production for profit.
CHAPTER IV
FOREIGN AGGRESSION
Geographical siiuation restricted the contact of ancient China with foreign countries. ^ When navigation was known only to the West-Asiatic and South-European peoples, the Pacific Ocean was an effective barrier for China on the east. Extensive desert territories, inhabited by traditionally hostile barbarians, made the overland communication to the West hazardous except for the most adventurous travellers. High, impassable mountains separated China from India. Living in such a situation of geographical isolation, the inhabitants of ancient China naturally developed a very conservative and suspicious attitude towards foreigners and everything outlandish. Nevertheless, the anti-foreign senti- ment that characterised the public life of modem China and which found the acutest outburst in the closing days of the nineteenth century, is not to be traced all the way back into Chinese history. On the contrary, the sages of ancient China taught toleration, hospitality and friendship to the foreigners. The classical Holy Books contain such injunctions: “Be kind to strangers who come from afar.” Confucius taitght that "all within the four seas are brethren.” The anti-foreign sentiment is of a recent growth, and developed under very great provocations. It was a reaction ■to the behaviour of the Europeans who visited China ever since the sixteenth century.
In addition to the behaviour of the Europetm visitors, there are other historical reasons for the Chinese people to be suspicious and hostile to foreigners. The spruggle to keep the barbarian invaders off her westmi and noithem frontier continued throt^hout the histtny Oritni. She was not always successful in that historic smiggle. Hepeidsedly, llie Chinese soil was overrun by barbarian hordes ikading
FOREIGN AGGRESSION
IQl
death and destruction far and wide. More than once, the barbarian invaders established their domination over the country for periods of varied length. Although on all those occasions the invaders were ultimately absorbed in the Chinese society, just as “captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror”, their advent, in the beginning, could not but make an unfavourable impression upon the Chinese mind. Moreover, all tfte invading race^ having been much lower in the scale of civilisation, it was natural that the Chinese should regard all outsiders as inferior to them- selves. The behaviour of the early European visitors, with the exception of the mediaeval scholarly travellers like Marco Polo and the Jesuits, was certainly not such as could possibly convince the Chinese that the visitors represented nations at least as civilised as themselves.
It was but natural that the Chinese assumed an air of superiority to all foreigners. The Tatars, Huns, Mongols and such like races, with whom they had from time to time come into contact until the sixteenth century, possessed decidedly lower types of culture. A similar attitude is to be found in all the ancient races who developed their respective civilisations with very little mutual contact. But, whenever any foreign visitor merited a different attitude, he was received by the Chinese with great consideration. For example, the Venetian traveller Marco Polo was admitted and given a place of honour in the Court of the great Kublay Khan. Many a Jesuit father also held high official positions during the latter part of his regime and in> the earlier years erf the Manchu rule. The Europeans, vAio visited the Chinese coasts from the sixteenth