Historical writing in China today, whether by scholars who are members of the Communist Party, or academic writers who are not themselves Communists, has paid scant attention to the long period of time which may be called the Chinese Middle Ages, roughly from A.D. 316, the date of the partition of north and south following the nomad invasions, down to the end of the Sung Dynasty in A.D. 1278. This period of nearly a thousand years is considered by the Communist philosophy of history to be “feudal” and no real change in the social structure is supposed to have taken place under the long succession of “feudal” dynasties. Compared with the important transformation of ancient “slave society” to serf-owning feudalism, which is considered to have been completed somewhat before the Han Dynasty came to power, this long interim of feudalism drags on until, with the Ming, the first signs of nascent capitalism are to be detected, ushering in the still more dramatic events of imperialist aggression, revolution and the final triumph of the Communist Party. The scheme is not Chinese; it was borrowed, or adopted, from the Russians, who in turn seem to have based it upon a reference of Marx, contained in one of his letters, to the view that the general progression from primitive society to slave-owning monarchies, and then to feudalism, appeared to be a law of history. It may well be that this scheme is roughly applicable to several Western societies, but it is very hard to thrust Chinese history onto this procrustean bed—and still make sense of it.