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National Development and Social Revolution in Early Chinese Marxist Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Arif Dirlik
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Extract

Studies of communism in China reveal a strong element of nationalism in the acceptance and interpretation of communism from Li Ta-chao to Mao Tse-tung. The concern of Chinese Communists with the plight of the Chinese nation has led to two significant revisions of communism in its Marxist-Leninist form: the elevation of national over class struggle and the consequent eclipsing of the proletariat by the “people.” Maurice Meisner says of Li Ta-chao, whom he regards as the forerunner of Mao, “Li no doubt attached considerable importance to the organization of the proletariat, but he was predisposed from the beginning to look to the potential revolutionary forces of the whole ‘proletarian’ nation rather than of a single social class forming only a tiny portion of the nation.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 58 , June 1974 , pp. 286 - 309
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1974

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References

1. Meisner, Maurice, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism (Cambridge, 1967), p. 223Google Scholar;

2. Ibid. p. 194.

3. Yat-sen, Sun, San-min chu-i (Taipei, 1966), p. 198Google Scholar;

4. Fo-hai, Chou, San-min chu-i chih li-lun ti ti-hsi (Shanghai, 1928), pp. 221–32Google Scholar;

5. Li-hsi, Wang, “Chung-kuo she-hui shih lun-chan hsü-mu,” Tu-shu tsa-chih, 1: 4–5 (08 1931), pp. 9–10Google Scholar;

6. This is quite evident from the documents of the various CCP congresses of the 1921–26 period. SeeBrandt, C. et al. (eds.), A Documentary History of Chinese Communism (New York, 1967)Google Scholar;

7. See Schwartz, Benjamin I., Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (New York, 1967), pp. 58–59Google Scholar;

8. Trotsky, Leon, “The Canton insurrection” (Alma Ata, 1928)Google Scholar in Trotsky, L. (ed. Shachtman, Max), Problems of the Chinese Revolution (Ann Arbor, 1967), p. 125Google Scholar;

9. Trotsky, , “First speech on the Chinese question,” delivered at the eighth plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, Moscow, 05 1927Google Scholar; In Problems, pp. 110–111.

10. Schwartz, Chinese Communism, passim.

11. Stalin, I. V., “Comments on current affairs in China,” Pravda, 28 07 1927Google Scholar; In Selections from V. 1. Lenin and J. V. Stalin on the National Colonial Question (Calcutta, 1970), p. 205Google Scholar;

12. Ibid. pp. 205–206.

13. In the winter of 1928, the supporters of Wang Ching-wei organized them*ttves into the “reorganization society ” (kai-tsu t'ung-chih hui) to cany on the struggle against the right wing of the KMT. The group was discredited and disappeared after the defeat of their paradoxical alliance with the northern Warlords, Yen Hsi-shan and Feng Yü-hsiang. Among the outstanding leaders Srere Ch'en Kung-po and Ku Meng-yü.

14. Left-KMT views were explained in a number of journals published from 1928. The more important were Hsin sheng-ming (New Life), Shuang Shih (Double Ten), Ko-ming p'ing-lun (Revolutionary Review) and Ch'ien chin (Forward). Hsin sheng-ming became especially popular for its social analyses of historical and contemporary Chinese society. The foremost author in these areas was T'ao Hsi-sheng (1899– ) who, until 1925, was a relatively unknown legal historian and an editor at the Commercial Press. From 1927 until 1937, when he went into politics, T'ao was one of the most imaginative social historians in China, a professor at Pei-ta (after 1931) and the publisher of the Shih huo (1933–37), an outstanding journal of social and economic history.

15. Hsi-sheng, T'ao, Chung-kuo she-hui chih shih ti fen-hsi (Shanghai, 1929), p. 26Google Scholar; Also see Chih, Yü (pseud. Ku Meng-yil), “Nung-min yü t'u-ti wen-t'i,” in Hsi-sheng, T'ao (ed.), Chung-kuo wen-t'i chih hui-ku yü chan-wang (Shanghai, 1930), pp. 261–62Google Scholar;

16. Many of T'ao's works deal with the problem of the role of commercial capital in Chinese society. For a discussion of the early period, seeChung-kuo feng-chien she-hui shih (Shanghai, 1929), pp. 41–60Google ScholarPubMed;

17. T'ao, , Chung-kuo she-hui chih shift ti fen-hsi, pp. 83–105Google Scholar; T'ao regarded the gentry as a status group intermediating between the formally economic landlords and the formally political bureaucracy. He was somewhat ambiguous on this issue, trying to present them as not belonging to any class. One opponent, Li Chi, criticized him severely for his views on the gentry.

18. Ibid. For his distinction between feudal lords and the shih-tai-fu, see p. 38 of the same book.

19. T'ao, , “Min-tsu wen-t'i yü min-tsu chu-i,” Hsin sheng-ming, 2:7 (07 1929), pp. 1–14Google Scholar;

20. T'ao, , Chung-kuo she-hui chih shih ti fen-hsi, p. 42Google Scholar;

21. Ibid. p. 142.

22. T'ao, , “Chung-kuo chih shang-jen tzu-pen chi ti-chu yü nung-min,” Hsin sheng-ming, 3:2 (02 1930), p 7Google Scholar;

23. Ibid. p. 12.

24. Ibid. See alsoSsu-yuan, Ho, “Chung-kuo tsai shih-chieh ching-chi ti ti-wei ho Chung-kuo wei-chi,” Hsin sheng-ming, 2:5 (05 1929), pp. 1–4Google Scholar and Lin Min, “Tzu-pen chu-i she-hui yen-chiu,” ibid. 3:12 (December 1930), pp. 1, 11.

25. The articles dealing with these issues are too numerous to cite. For a detailed discussion of the advantages of foreign industries over Chinese, seeKu-ch'eng, Chou, “Hsien-tai Chung-kuo ching-chi pien-ch'ien kai-lun,” Tu-shu tsa-chih, 2:7–8 (08 1932), pp. 1–69Google Scholar; Esp. pp. 50–55 for these specific issues.

26. T'ao, “Chung-kuo chih shang-jen tzu-pen chi ti-chu yü nung-min.” KMT leftists played down the exploitative role of the landlord as landlord, blaming exploitation on commercial capital instead.

27. Some important ones areT'ao, , “T'ung-i yü sheng-ch'an,” Hsin sheng-ming 3:4 (04 1930)Google Scholar and “Ch'ang ch'i ho-p'ing chih chen-tuan,” ibid. 3:11 (November 1930); Sa Meng-wu, “Kuo-min ko-ming ytt she-hui ko-ming,” ibid. 1:8 (August 1928); Sa, “Ti-i t'ung-i ti-erh sheng-ch'an,” ibid. 3:5 (May 1930); and Sa, “Ko-ming yü t'ung-i,” ibid. 3:6 (June 1930).

28. Sa, “Ko-ming yü t'ung-i.”

29. T'ao, , “Chung-kuo chih shang-jen chi ti-chu yü nung-min,” p. 16Google Scholar; Also Chih, Yü, “Nung-min yü t'u-ti wen-t'i,” p. 265Google Scholar;

30. T'ao, , “Min-tsu wen-t'i yü min-tsu chu-i,” p. 13Google Scholar;

31. In the 7 August Conference in 1927, Ch'ü Ch'iu-pai replaced Ch'en Tu-hsiu as the secretary-general of the party. Ch'ü retained this position for close to a year, after which it was passed on to Hsiang Chung-fa in the Sixth National Congress of the CCP in Moscow in 1928. Finally, the second plenary session of the sixth central committee marked the rise of Li Li-san to leadership within the party. These changes in leadership, however, reflected little more than tactical shifts in party policies. Except for a brief period in 1928 when the party toyed with the idea of China as an “Asiatic society,” the estimation of Chinese society as “feudal” and Chinese revolution as “anti-feudal anti-imperialist” was the dominant one. This view was explained, in addition to party documents, in journals such as Ssu-hsiang yüeh-k'an (Thought Monthly), Shih-chieh yüeh-k'an (World Monthly), Mo-teng ch'ing-nien (Modern Youth) and Hsin ssu-ch'ao (New Thought Tide). See I-ch'ang, Wang, “Chung-kuo she-hui shih lun shih,” Tu-shu tsa-chih, 2:2–3 (03 1932), pp. 22–23Google Scholar;

32. The mode of exploitation of the peasant by the landlord, described variously as “non-economic” or “extra-economic” exploitation, was taken by many holding this view as crucial to the definition of feudalism.Ch'i-hua, Chu (pseud. Chu P'ei-wo), Chung-kuo she-hui ti ching-chi chieh-kou (Shanghai, 1932), p. 277Google Scholar;

33. Li-san, Li, “Chung-kuo ko-ming ti ken-pen wen-t'i,” Pu-erh-sai-wei-k'o (Bolshevik), 3:2–3 (15 03 1930), p. 60Google Scholar;

34. These views were quite common. For an example, seeTung-chou, P'an, “Chung-kuo kuo-min ching-chi ti kai-tsao wen-t'i,” She-hui k'o-hsueh chiang-tso (Shanghai, n.d.), Vol. 1, pp. 246–51Google Scholar;

35. P'an, , “Chung-kuo ching-chi chih hsing-chih,” quoted in Shu, Jen, Chung-kuo ching-chi yen-chiu hsü-lun (Shanghai, 1932), pp. 23–24Google Scholar;

36. Ling-feng, Yen, Chung-kuo ching-chi wen-fi yen-chiu (Shanghai, 1931), p. 50Google Scholar;

37. Brandt, et al. (eds.), Documentary History, p. 946Google Scholar;

38. P'an, , “Chung-kuo kuo-min ching-chi kai-tsao wen-t'i,” p. 242Google Scholar;

39. Hsin-fan, Chu, “Chung-kuo she-hui chin feng-chien-hsing ti t'ao-lun,” Tushu tsa-chih, 1:4–5 (08 1931), p. 45Google Scholar;

40. As noted above, the “non” or the “extra” economic nature of the exploitation in Chinese agriculture was crucial to the definition of Chinese society as feudal by advocates of this position. Chu and others frequently quoted from the third volume of Das Kapitai to prove that Marx regarded “extra-economic” exploitation as a characteristic of feudalism. In his discussion of labour rent, Marx says: “It is furthermore evident that in all forms in which the direct labourer remains the ‘possessor’ of the means of production and labour conditions necessary for the production of his own means of subsistence, the property relationship must appear as a direct relationship of lordship and servitude, so that the direct producer is not free; a lack of freedom which may be reduced from a serfdom with enforced labour to a mere tributary relationship. The direct producer, according to our assumption is to be found here in pos-session of his own means of production, the necessary material labour conditions required for the realisation of his labour and the production of his means of subsistence.… Under such conditions the surplus-labour for the nominal owner of the land can only be extorted from him by other than economic pressure, whatever the form assumed may be.” (Marx, , Das Kapitai (New York, 1970), Vol. III, pp. 790–91.)Google Scholar The interpretation of this passage by advocates of the “feudal” China position involves two problems. One, it is not clear from the passage that Marx meant this as a definition of feudalism as such. What is important is a condition where the producer continues to remain the possessor of the means of production. Just after that passage, Marx refers to that condition as existing in Asia, with the state replacing the individual lord. Secondly, by “other than economic pressure ” at the end of the passage, Marx would seem to mean that since the labourer possesses the means of production, he is not subject to purely economic (market) competition, like the proletariat, but is economically his own master. That being so, the extortion of surplus labour is political or “extra-economic.” Chinese Marxists of this position, in interpreting this idea, simply took exorbitant exploitation to mean “extra-economic” or “non-economic” exploitation.

41. The ambiguity towards imperialism is evident in the following two passages from P'an Tung-chou. “After imperialism invaded China, it had to build railroads and open up ports there in order to export its commodities into the country. In order to exploit the cheap labor of China and to utilize her natural treasures it had to establish new style capitalist enterprises. China's revolution in production certainly started after the eastward expansion of capitalism. Imperialism brought to China new style capitalist techniques and opened up China. Following this, it dealt a heavy blow to China's feudal economy, guild system and natural economy, driving China's economic organization on to a new path,” in Chung-kuo ching-chi lun, quoted in Kan-chih, Ho, Chung-kuo she-hui hsing-chih wen-t'i lun-chan (Shanghai, 1937), pp. 63–64Google Scholar. Though imperialism destroyed the feudal economy, it was unwilling to permit the development of China which would mean an end to its exploitation of the country. In this exploitation, imperialism used the same methods of exploitation as used by the Chinese feudal groups, perpetuating the very mode it was undermining. “The method employed by imperialism in obtaining raw materials from the Chinese peasant is to ally itself with the feudal landlords and the commercial capital of the village. They use their compradors [commercial capital] to purchase raw materials from the landlords, raising the hopes of the latter and leading them to even deeper exploitation of the peasant. Furthermore, [the landlord] taking advantage of the plight of the peasant, uses interest and money to force down the prices of his [the peasant's] products. With all these ties, imperialism uses landlords and commercial capital to make the exploitation of the peasant harsher under the old methods and relations of production.” Ibid. p. 64.

42. “Speaking from the viewpoint of its major forces and its direction of development, the Chinese economy is one that preserves strong feudal forces but has entered the path of capitalism in a colony. This is to say, on the one hand, China has already started developing toward capitalism under the control of international imperialism which is propelling it toward semi-colonialism while, on the other hand, she preserves very strong feudal forces.” Wang Hsüeh-wen in She-hui k'o-hsueh chiang-tso, quoted inKan-chih, Ho, Chungkuo she-hui hsing-chih wen-t'i lun-chan, pp. 61–62Google Scholar;

43. The Trotskyites mostly joined the discussion after their expulsion from the CCP in late 1929. The outstanding exponents of this position were Jen Shu and Yen Ling-feng whose book-length studies cited above became the targets of attacks from the other positions (see notes 38–39). Also in 1930, the Trotskyites published a short-lived journal, Tung li (Der Motor), in which they explained their position on Chinese society.

44. Shu, Jen, Chung-kuo ching-chi yen-chiu hsü-lun, p. 37Google Scholar;

45. See above, note 36.

46. The following tables offered by Jen as “proof” of the victory of capitalism in China indicate this attitude. “If we can say that Chinese junks manifest the means of communication of the feudal economy and steamships represent the means of communication of the capitalist period, then…” SeeJen, , Chung-kuo ching-chi yen-chiu hsü-lun, pp. 82–83Google Scholar; Jen was attacked severely by his opponents as well as by his fellow-Trotskyite, Yen Ling-feng.

47. Yen, , Chung-kuo ching-chi wen-t'i yen chiu, pp. 9–10Google Scholar; A similar argument was offered by Hsüeh-chia, Cheng, “Tzu-pen chu-i fa-chan chung chih Chung-kuo nung-ts'un,” Tu-shu tsa-chih, 2:7–8 (08 1932), p. 9Google Scholar;

48. Yen, , Chung-kuo ching-chi wen-t'i yen chiu, p. 10Google Scholar;

49. This confidence in communism as a means of solving problems of development confirms the thesis that communism in developing societies has served as an ideology of national development. Studies on this theme generally agree that the socialism of developing nations represents not so much a single doctrine as a common vocabulary derived from European socialism, especially Marxism, but endowed with a significantly new meaning that reflects the common experiences of these nations. This vocabulary has found particular relevance in those societies exposed to colonialism. SeeKautsky, John H., Political Change in Underdeveloped Countries: Nationalism and Communism (New York, 1962)Google Scholar; and Communism and the Politics of Development (New York, 1968)Google Scholar; For a more theoretical examination of Marxism from the perspective of modernization, see Tucker, Robert C., The Marxian Revolutionary Idea (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; One of the earliest works to point out the relationship between Marxism and development was Ulam's, Adam B.The Unfinished Revolution (first published 1960)Google Scholar; Ulam's influence is discernible in later works on the same theme. Of these works, the most explicit in developing a relationship between nationalism and communism are the books by Kautsky.

50. Kautsky, , Communism and the Politics of Development, p. 60Google Scholar;

51. Tucker has suggested that under conditions of “arrested ” and “differential ” modernization, which correspond to the “stagnation ” and “uneven development” of Chinese Marxists, the glaring polarity between the modern and the pre-modern sectors of society is very reminiscent of Marx's portrayal of “a totally polarized revolutionary society, a society divided into two hostile camps.” This he identifies as Marxism's source of appeal in modernizing societies: “This central theme of Marxism [i.e. social polarity] is intensely meaningful to many members of the radical intelligentsia of a semi-modern country because of a salient aspect of society as they perceive it: its bifurcation.” (Tucker, , Marxian Revolutionary Idea, p. 126.)Google Scholar The Chinese case confirms that social bifurcation was an important concern of radicals and that they looked to Marxism as a means of overcoming it. The explanation offered here differs nevertheless from Tucker's. Tucker suggests that the appeal of Marxism under such circumstances is merely paradigmatic: it is the “theme” of polarization rather than the class analysis in Marxism that is “intensely meaningful” to the radical intelligentsia “ guiltily and indignantly conscious of the social cleavage” in their societies (p. 127). The evidence of Chinese Marxists indicates that, whatever the individual reasons for becoming a Marxist, Marxism at the political level answered the important demand for national integration which was bound up with the issue of classes.

52. All sides in the discussion agreed on the intimacy of the ties between landlords and urban interests. The disagreements were more on the role of the landlord.

53. Lenin, V. I., Imperialism (Peking, 1969), p. 147Google Scholar;

54. Lenin's ideas on the national question are not free of ambiguities. On occasion, he does sound as if he condones national liberation as an end in itself: “Victorious socialism must necessarily establish a full democracy and, consequently, not only introduce full equality of nations but also realise the right of the oppressed nations to self-determination.…”“The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination,” Selections from V. I. Lenin and. J. V. Stalin on the National Colonial Question (Calcutta, 1970), p. 31Google Scholar; But this statement itself is preceded by one on revolution in Europe and the U.S. On the whole, I think, Lenin's writings on national liberation and imperialism display little evidence that he thought of national liberation independently of the world-wide class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie or regarded class struggle as an instrument of achieving national goals; rather, the overall thrust was in the direction of regarding national struggles in subordination to class struggle. In the “Preliminary Draft Theses on the National and Colonial Questions” he presented to the Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920, he stated categorically that “petty-bourgeois nationalism,” preserving “national self-interest intact” and not going beyond demands for national equality must be rejected in favour of “proletarian internationalism” that gives priority to the world-wide struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and “inter-national capital.” Ibid. p. 58.

55. Kautsky, , Communism and the Politics of Development, pp. 69–82Google Scholar;

56. Ibid. p. 91. Kautsky takes the communism of developing countries as a tool of national development. Although his general analysis of the relationship between Marxism and nationalism has a great deal of merit, his depreciation of the communist commitment to social revolution obscures the differences between the strategies of national development conceived by different groups of nationalists, such as those observed between communists and the KMT in the 1920s. The distinguishing criterion of the three groups discussed here, all of them “nationalists,” was their attitude towards social revolution. Marxist premises were accepted by them in different degrees, indicating a tension between those premises and national concerns, rather than the use of one as a cloak for the other.

57. “Every vital revolutionary movement of the twentieth century has been both national and social.”Snyder, Louis L., The New Nationalism (Ithaca, 1968), p. 33Google Scholar; On the other hand, only communist revolutionary movements have under-taken serious social restructuring.

58. Chün, Shih, “On studying some history of the National Liberation Movement,” Peking Review, Vol. 15, No. 45 (10 11 1972), pp. 6–10Google Scholar; National liberation appears here as very much the end of history. See p. 10.

59. Trotsky, L., The Permanent Revolution and Results and Prospects (New York, 1970), p. 279Google Scholar;