By linking up two different ecological crises in western countries——the depletion of soil fertility in rural area and the pollution in urban area，Marx argued that the “social rift” of capitalism，i.e.，the rift between urban and rural areas caused by the separation of intensive industry and intensive agriculture and the rift between landowners and tenant farmers in intensive agriculture，is the fundamental reason for metabolic rift. This paper argues that Marx’s theory cannot properly explain the metabolic rift within villages now happening in China. In the context of post-socialist transformation，the social rift in China today is restricted to the interior of rural communities that have neither intensive industrial production nor intensive agriculture. The author then suggests that the metabolic rift in Chinese villages today is mainly caused by “communal rift”.