Kuo's Periodization of Chinese History

Chung-kuo ku-tai she-hui yen-chiu was thoroughly infused by Engels's ideas on historical development as presented in The Origin of the Family, the State, and Private Property (1884) and, through Engels, Lewis H. Morgan's categorization and periodization of primitive societies in his Ancient Society (1877).^[7] Kuo imprudently acknowledged his own research to be the continuation in Chinese history of Engels's work on early soci-

[7] References here are to The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1960) and Ancient Society (New York: Henry Holt, 1907). The two books were published in 1884 and 1877 respectively.

ety, evoking considerable sarcasm among his opponents, who readily responded with facetious jibes at "China's Engels." He followed the suit of his intellectual mentors, especially Morgan, in restricting his research almost exclusively to the early period of Chinese history when Chinese society had first emerged into civilization. Marx's own works played no significant role in his analysis beyond the periodization he offered in the introductory chapter.

Kuo's periodization synthesized the social formations Marx had identified in the Critique with the technological view of progress that figured prominently in the analyses of Morgan and Engels. It is important to note in evaluating Kuo's approach to the problem of historical development that while he eagerly accepted Marx's social formations as stages in a universal scheme of development, he ignored altogether Marx's formulation of the dynamics of historical progress in terms of the periodic contradiction between the mode and the relations of production. Technological innovation appeared in his work as the unilateral motive force of historical evolution. In his own words, "the development of the economy of mankind [was] premised on the development of tools."^[8] It is almost certain that Kuo acquired this view of historical dynamics from Morgan and Engels, but he outdid both of those authors in endowing technology with a causative significance. Morgan and Engels had been content to indicate a correspondence between technological and social change without deliberating on causation. Morgan considered it "probable that the successive arts of subsistence [that is, technological accretions to the means of securing livelihood] which arose at long intervals will ultimately, from the great influence they must have exercised upon the condition of mankind, afford the most satisfactory bases for the division [of social evolution]." But, he admitted, "investigation has not been carried far enough in this direction to yield the necessary information." He added further that "it is difficult if not impossible, to find such tests of progress to mark the commencement of these several periods as will be found absolute in

[8] Research, p. 176.

their application, and without exceptions upon all the continents."^[9]

It must be remembered, moreover, that all of the periods Morgan referred to belonged in the primitive, precivilized phase of historical development, when the impact of technological innovation on society appeared to be more pronounced than in later times as increasing social complexity introduced other sources of historical dynamics. This may also account for Engels's ready acceptance of the primary significance of technology as a motive force of development. The "precivilized" phase of society corresponded to the stage of primitive communism in Marxist periodization which, as both Marx and Engels agreed, was the classless phase of history. Rightly or wrongly, it was possible to deduce from this premise that the forces of production eclipsed the relations of production as the motive force of social progress at a time when humanity existed in a precarious relationship with nature and the ability to cope with the problem of physical survival rendered social conflict trivial by comparison as a datum of history. This position characterized historical materialists such as Bukharin, who stated explicitly that different criteria should be employed in explaining social development in the primitive and civilized stages of history.^[10]

In the case of Kuo, however, the causative role technology played in history was not restricted to primitive society but was extended over the whole historical period. Kuo employed social structure to distinguish the various stages of Chinese history, but he ignored it when it came to questions of historical dynamics and placed his emphasis exclusively on technology. Accordingly, he correlated the social formations he derived from the Critique with technological innovations. He associated stone tools with the stage of primitive communism (or Asiatic society), which in China corresponded to the period before the Chou dynasty.^[11] The discovery of metals — with iron as the turning point — had led to the emergence of slavery around the time of the Chou conquest of Shang. He was less clear about the

[9] Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 9.

[10] Bukharin, Historical Materialism, chap. 5.

[11] Research, p. 176.

technological innovation that accounted for the transition from slavery to feudalism and ascribed it to advances in the technique of iron-smelting.^[12] In the case of capitalism, he resorted to the authority of a statement Marx had made in the Poverty of Philosophy : "The handmill [in other translations, the wind-milli gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist."^[13] Capitalism, Kuo concluded from this statement, originates with the use of the steam engine; China had never made the transition from feudalism to capitalism because the Chinese had failed to discover the steam engine.^[14] Similarly, Kuo cited a casual remark Marx had thrown out on seeing an electric locomotive in a Regent Street exhibition to infer that electric power heralded the age of socialism.^[15]

Kuo described the various stages in terms of the prevalent modes of subsistence and the dominant social relations.^[16] In the primitive communist stage, production was based on the use of stone and, later, copper (t'ung ) instruments. The basic mode of subsistence was hunting and fishing with some domestication of animals. Socially, the characteristic organization was the matrilineal gens.

Primitive society was transformed into slave society with the discovery of iron, which marked the commencement of fullscale agriculture based on slave labor. This stage constituted a revolutionary turning point in human history. For one thing, the agrarian economy and increasing commercial intercourse necessitated the division of labor (handicrafts-agriculture and urban-rural) which led to the emergence of classes, private property, and the state. The gens organization persisted as the collective owner of property, which now included the class of

[12] Ibid., p. 6.

[13] Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy (New York: International Publishers, 1969), p. 109.

[14] Research , p. 21. The assumption, of course, was not quite valid. The Chinese were aware of steam power, if not the steam engine, very early in history. See Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China (Taiwan reprint of Cambridge University Press 1954 ed.), vol. 4, part 1, p. 70.

[15] Research, p. 7. For Marx's comment, see Martin Bober, Karl Marx's Interpretation of History (New York: Norton, 1965), p. 9.

[16] For the scheme discussed here, see the introductory chapter to the Research .

slaves, but politically it was subjected to the power of the state. Second, the agrarian-herding economy altered the relationship between the sexes; their function in the new economy enhanced the status of males in society and enabled them to subject women to their power within the clan organization.

Feudalism, the third stage of development, followed upon advances in iron technology and, therefore, productive power. As previously noted the technological change which was responsible for the emergence of feudalism did not mark as clear a break with the past as in the case of the other formations. Likewise, Kuo minimized the distinction between the slave and the feudal social organizations:

There is definitely not much difference between society under the feudal system and society under the slave system. The slave system grew out of gens society and retained many features of consanguity; the feudal system, on the other hand, was. [essentially] a slave system shaped by greater regionalism [literally, "containing an abundance of regionalism"]. Peasants contra landlords, apprentices contra masters within the guild system, officials and peasants contra feudal lords in administration all represented no other than metamorphosed slaves [pien-hsiang ti nu-li ].^[17]

This distinction was widened a few years later, either because Kuo had a deeper understanding of the categories by that time or because, as we shall see, he revised some of his views on the technological dividing line between slavery and feudalism: "In the new conception, the feudal system is based upon the relationship between landlord and serf [nung-nu ]. The differences between serf and slave [nu-li ] are that the former is physically free while the latter is not, the former is at least a semi-person [pan-ko jen-ko ] while the latter is purely a means of production; the former emerges out of the latter." Nevertheless, possibly with those who rejected slavery as a historical stage in mind, he maintained the existence of a necessary relationship between the two systems: "If [society] did not go through the slave system following gens society, serfdom could not emerge."^[18]

[17] Ibid., p. 23.

[18] Kuo, "Ch'u Yuan shih-tai" (The Time of Ch'u Yuan) in Mo-jo wen-chi (Collected Essays by Kuo Mo-jo), vol. 11 (Peking, 1959), p. 5. First published in 1937.

He continued to hold that serfs were in essence slaves who had commandeered the means of production and gained a measure of independence. In feudal society as a whole, tribes merged with the weakening of blood ties and proximity rather than consanguinity-shaped social relationships. In social-economic organization, the manorial organization in the countryside and guilds in the cities replaced the gens in importance. Politically, all power now resided with feudal lords.

Finally, the invention of the steam engine had made possible the transition to capitalism. The unprecedented increase of production and the accumulation of capital in this stage propelled capitalists toward the expansion of the market available for their enterprises and pushed capitalism to its final stage of imperialism.

Kuo, after discussing these premises within the context of Chinese society, offered the following table in summary of his periodization of Chinese history.

Of these various periods, the ones that became the subjects of controversy were the slave system of early Chou and, to a lesser extent, the pre-Chou period. Some of the Marxist historians objected to Kuo's identification of Asiatic and primitive communist societies. As this debate involved alternative interpretations of the concept "Asiatic mode of Production" which I will consider later, it seems best to postpone its discussion. The more important controversy to grow out of Kuo's periodization

in the years 1931–1933 revolved around the issue of slavery. In the rest of this chapter, I will look at Kuo's statements on early Chou society, the objections they aroused, and Kuo's revisions of his view in the thirties.