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A Stronger Oriental Despotism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

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Communist China is not an “Asiatic” (“hydraulic”) society; nor is Mao's government a replica of the power system called “Oriental despotism.” Comparative analysis reveals basic similarities as well as important dissimilarities between Communist totalitarianism and the absolutist régimes that prevailed in traditional Asia, North Africa and certain parts of pre-Columbian America.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 1 , March 1960 , pp. 29 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1960

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References

1 Wittfogel, Karl A., Oriental Despotism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), p. 440.Google Scholar (Hereafter cited as Wittfogel, 1957.)

2 Nehru mentions these freedoms in his account of India's history, but he also notes that there was no “urge for popular freedom” (Nehru, Jawaharlal, Glimpses of World History. New York: John Day Co., 1942, p. 302).Google Scholar In his opinion “the static nature of Indian society” was due largely to the fact that the Indian middle class did not fight for political leadership as was done “in some Western countries.” (Idem, The Discovery of India. New York: John Day Co., 1946, p. 284.)Google Scholar

3 Wittfogel, , 1957, pp. 149–160.Google Scholar

4 Dr. Sun Yat-sen held that under China's traditional absolutism the people, after the fulfilment of their government obligations, were much left to themselves like “loose sand” (Yat-sen, Sun, San Min Chu 1: The Three Principles of the People, trans. by Price, Frank W., Chungking, 1943, pp. 198, 203et seq.).Google Scholar

5 See Wittfogel, Karl A., “Forced Labor,”Google Scholar in Handbook on China, edited by Hellmut Wilhelm for the Human Relations Area Files and the U.S. Army (ms.). (Hereafter cited as “Forced Labor.”)

6 Russia lacked the large government-managed public works characteristic of hydraulic core areas, but since the days of Mongol rule the Russian state employed Oriental despotic means of organisation and acquisition. For the concept of a marginal Oriental (“hydraulic”) society and its application to Tsarist Russia, see Wittfogel, , 1957, p. 173et seq.Google Scholar

7 See “Forced Labor,” parts I and II. The present account stresses the contrast between the Communist régime and China's traditional “Oriental” order. It cannot depict the significant attempts at transforming this order that were made prior to the Communist victory, particularly after the establishment of the Republic in 1912.

8 Tse-tung, Mao, Nung-ts'un tiao-ch'a (Village Investigations) (no place: Hsin-hua Shu-tien, 1947), p. 246.Google Scholar

9 Snow, Edgar, Red Star Over China. (New York: Random House, 1938), p. 213Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Snow 1938); cf. Tse-tung, Mao, “Ching-chi wen-t'i yü ts'ai-cheng wen-t'i”Google Scholar (Economic and Financial Problems) in Tse-tung, Mao, Hsuan-chi (Selected Works) (Ta-lien: Ta-chung Shu-tien, 1947), pp. 559, 564, 580.Google Scholar

10 See Jasny, Naum, The Socialized Agriculture of the USSR. Plans and Performance. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1948), p. 300et seq.Google Scholar

11 Tse-tung, Mao, Nung-ts'un tiao-ch'a, 1947, pp. 93, 99, 115et seq.Google Scholar

12 See Wittfogel, Karl A., “The Peasants,” Chap. XI, Handbook of World Communism, ed. by Bochenski, Joseph and Niemeyer, Gerhart. (German edition: München 1958.Google Scholar American edition to be published soon by Frederick A. Praeger, New York.)

13 Snow, 1938, pp. 113 and 124.Google Scholar

14 Considerations of status have profoundly affected Chinese thinking in the past. Under the Communists and in a new form they have again become extremely significant. Without doubt they have influenced Mao's attitude toward Khrushchev who achieved national and international prominence much later than he. But however status-conscious Mao may be, his sentiment does not imply a denial of the pioneering role of the Bolshevik revolution. Nor does it negate the view that the Soviet Union because of its “advanced” industrial and Socialist development is institutionally pre-eminent among the countries of the Communist orbit.

15 Wittfogel, 1957, pp. 107, 345.Google Scholar Despite the Staun precedent, Western social scientists find it difficult to recognise that, under conditions of total power, the personality of the autocratic leader assumes major political importance.

16 See Lindsay, Michael, China and the Cold War (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1955)Google Scholar, passim; Niemeyer, Gerhart and Reshetar, John S. Jr., An Inquiry into Soviet Mentality (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1956)Google Scholar, passim; Bochenski, J. M., “Critique of Communism,” Chap. XV in the forthcoming Handbook of World Communism (see above, note 12).Google Scholar

17 See Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom, The Complete Text of “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People,” by Mao Tse-tung, with notes and an introduction by Hudson, G. F. (New York: New Leader, Supplement 2, 09 9, 1957), p. 54.Google Scholar