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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
On the first of October, 1949, the Chinese Communists* climaxed their military success by establishing on the mainland a new revolutionary government, the “Chinese People's Republic.” While this government included a number of splinter parties, it was—and is—undisguisedly dominated by the Chinese Communist Party. The new rulers, who quickly destroyed the old system of political control, are today drastically reorganizing the country's social and economic relations. And they are planning to go far beyond the changes accomplished to date.
* The main ideas of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Far Eastern Association in New York City, April 15, 1954.
1 The Common Program and Other Documents of the First Plenary Session of The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, p. 1. (Peking, 1950).Google Scholar
2 Cf. Tse-tung, Mao: Hsüan-Chi (Selected Works) II:594 (Peking, 1952)Google Scholar; Mo-jo, Kuo: Chung-kuo Ku-tai Shê-hui Yen-chiu (A Study of the Society of Ancient China), pp. 112 ff. (Shanghai, 1931).Google Scholar
3 Common Program: 11.Google Scholar
4 For the whole paragraph, see Wittfogel, Karl A.: Oriental Society and Oriental Despotism, chap. IX (ms.). (Quoted hereafter as Wittfogel, OSOD).Google Scholar
5 Marx, , New York Daily Tribune, 06 25, 1853.Google Scholar
6 Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich: Gesammelte Schriften 1852 bis 1862, ed. by Rjasanoff, N. I:189. (Stuttgart, 1920)Google Scholar. (Quoted hereafter as Marx and Engels 1920). Italics mine.
7 Op. cit.: 160 and 197. Cf. also Marx, Karl: “Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the Eighteenth Century,” The Free Press IV:227. (1857). Italics mine.Google Scholar
8 See Smith, Adam: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, pp. 646 and 688 ff. (New York, 1937)Google Scholar. Marx may also have found references to the hydraulic aspect of Chinese agriculture and government in Hegel's Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte II:286 and 298. (Leipzig, 1920).Google Scholar
9 See Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich: The Russian Menace to EuropeGoogle Scholar, A Collection of Articles … by Blackstock, Paul W. and Hoselitz, Bert F., pp. 211 ff. and 233. (Glencoe, Ill., 1952).Google Scholar
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12 Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich: Historisch-Kritische Gesamtausgabe III, 1: 480. (Moscow 1927 ff.).Google Scholar
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15 See Wittfogel, Karl A.: “The Ruling Bureaucracy of Oriental Despotism: A Phenomena that Paralyzed Marx,” Review of Politics 15, no. 3: 352 ff. (1953).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16 Wittfogel, OSOD, chap. IX (ms.).
17 And it suffered the very fate which Marx and Engels ascribed to early Utopian socialism. Marx's socialist ideas were progressive in their criticism of the early industrial system; but, to use the language of the Communist Manifesto, they lost “all practical value and all theoretical justification,” when a new historical situation required, not the blind promotion of total statism, but its critical rejection. Marxism then became what the Manifesto, with respect to earlier socialist groups, designates as “reactionary” Utopianism. (For a discussion of the Utopian core in Marxism, see Wittfogel, OSOD, chap. IX.)
18 Engels 1935: 183.
19 Lenin first formulated this turn in Two Tactics, a book whose political implications for “backward” countries, such as China and India, are crucial. See Wittfogel, Karl A.: “The Influence of Leninism-Stalinism on China,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 277, p. 25. (1951).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
20 In 1912 Lenin applied this term to Sun Yat-sen, whose socialist intentions he considered both sincere and illusionary (see Lenin, V. I.: Sochinenia XVIII:146 [4th ed.Moscow, 1941–1950].Google Scholar [Quoted hereafter as Lenin, S]).
21 Lenin, W. I.: Sämtliche Werke (German edition) XXII:646-ffGoogle Scholar. (Wien-Berlin, later Moscow-Leningrad). (Quoted hereafter as Lenin, SWG).
22 Lenin, , S XXXII: 329 ff.Google Scholar
23 Lenin, , S XXXIII: 258.Google Scholar
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28 “Of the total value of industrial output in 1952, state-owned industry accounted for 50 per cent; joint state and privately owned industry for 5 per cent; cooperatives for 3 per cent; and private industry for 42 per cent. Of the total value of output of the larger industrial enterprises, state-owned industry accounted for 60 per cent; joint state and privately owned industry 6 per cent; co-operatives, 3 per cent; and private industry, 31 per cent.” (Communique on National Economic Cultural and Educational Rehabilitation and Development in 1952, issued by the State Statistical Bureau of the Central People's Government, September 28, 1953, Supplement to People's China, no. 20, p. 2 (1953)Google Scholar. (Quoted hereafter as Communique on … Development).
29 “State farms and the movement to organize mutual-aid teams and cooperatives continued to develop in 1952. There were 2,219 state farms in the country, of which 52 were mechanized; 3,663 agricultural producers' cooperatives; and over 8,300,000 mutual-aid teams of various types. In 1952, in the old liberated areas, more than 65 per cent of the total number of peasant households and in the newly liberated areas, about 25 per cent were organized into mutual-aid teams and co-operatives” (Communique on … Development, p. 4 ).
30 Marx, 1939: 395.Google Scholar