Social History Of Controversy And Modern Chinese Historiography

The Social History Controversy about history of society, which lasted from 1927 to 1937, is a great event in Chinese modern history of the history. Having some given political stand as their preconceived idea, the academic circle's cognition of it emphasized the political and ideological factors thus suppressed and shadowed the research about history of the history to some extent. By adopting the research approach of academic history, focusing on the internal logic of academic process and giving deserving consideration to the social context restricting academic growth, this paper is to trace the connections between the Controversy and these questions by locating the Controversy in the changing process of Chinese history from tradition to modern times and studying a couple of key problems of historical changes in the 20th century.This paper includes two volumes. The first volume is the generalization and summary of this Controversy about history of society, an academic history event. And in the first chapter the author cards the developing line of this Controversy. It burst when Chinese modern historiography was following the flow of western historiography. As for the influences that the western historiography imposed on Chinese historiography, it runs as follows: on the one hand, the main trend of western historiography provides guides for Chinese historiography development; and on the other hand, western sinology sets a direct example for Chinese historiography. Marxist historiography is also the product of the flow of western historiography. As a western scientific principle, historical materialism has a profound effect on the development of Chinese historiography. Historiography of historical materialism also connects with international Sinology. The popularity of Marxism and historical materialism is the ideological context of the Controversy: firstly, Marxist works were being published in great volume; secondly, Marxist theory found the entry into college forum; thirdly, ideological incidents concerned with Marxism happened frequently. From then on the Marxism grew from tickling brook to surging flood.The second chapter reviews the Controversy process. Generalized the Controversy includes three parts, that is, social nature debate, social history debate and rural nature debate. They are three aspects developing from the only problem of Chinese social formation. Restricted social history Controversy can be divided into summary, debateand research. In the first period each school put forward their assertions and disagreed with one another. Then assertions conflicted with one another and finally went into a debate. Dushu-zazhi made the Controversy come to its climax. While it stopped publication, Tao Xi-sheng started the semimonthly magazine Shi-huo and began to collect historical materials. And by enriching and constructing theories from historical materials, Guo Mo-ro and Lv Zhen-yu started their relatively peaceful and stable research. Such was the research period. In 1937 the Controversy ended with victory or defeat undecided.The third chapter is about the nature determination of the Controversy. The mainstream opinion regarded it as the Controversy between Marxism and non-Marxism. The distinguishing standard between Marxism and non-Marxism was based on the political position. It narrowed subjectively the range of Marxist historians. It failed to recognize the adversary of Marxist history. The theory of "culture besiege" of Mao Ze-dong provided important guide for the view. That is, judging from the pure academic aspect, the Controversy went on in the Marxist discourse system and was the internal debate of historical materialism. For one thing, carrying the research work of Chinese history according to Marxism and historical materialism was the mutual theory stand of both parties. And for another, basically speaking, both parties obeyed and used the theories and terms of historical materialism.The fourth chapter describes the study on the Controversy in both Soviet Union and Japan. As an international debate, this debate about social history set off great sensations among Marxist scholars in these two countries. The academic circles in Soviet Union, China and Japan were in the state of interaction. After deciding the discussion direction, Soviet Union drew an initial conclusion. While by absorbing the research result of Soviet Union and combing its theoretical method with research on Chinese history, Japan refined and deepened this discussion. When the orientalism circle in Soviet Union output the theoretical sources, opinions of many Japanese scholars were directly influenced by them. Being influenced by Soviet Union and Japan at the same time, Chinese historiography circle had newcoming advantages.Combing with the process of Chinese modern historiography, the second volume inquires into the Controversy from different angles.As for the fifth chapter, the paper inspects the hesitation of the Controversy between the academic formation and the ideology. With the intense practicalrequirement, the Controversy is to solve the problem of "In which direction should china go?" This drew further apart from the mainstream academic atmosphere at that time. With their efforts to explain the whole process of Chinese history from the historical materialism, the debaters broke the limit of reducing historiography to the science of historical data, and made people again realize the importance of theoretical explanation. The Controversy paid much attention to "smoothness" and "changes" and was deeply involved in long-period history, thus it led to ideological historiography at the same time. Ideology is not only a suppressing force but a productive force. It can provide the external power for academic development and stimulate the academic growth. Ideology is a double-edged sword: it triggered problems and provided the juncture for the steering of historiography.The sixth chapter analyzes the relationship between Controversy about history of society and research on the history of economy. The Controversy established two trends of economic history: one was in the accordance with the Controversy and having theories as its leading factor, and the other turned the Controversy direction and had historical materials as its leading factor. While the first branch made the history of economy catch up from behind and gain rapidly in status, the second branch really made the research on history of economy step into the right line. The entry into specialized track of research on Chinese economic history and thus making china a great power owed greatly to the guidance of Shi-huo. By compiling thesis index and carrying out the research on group division of labor, Shi-huo quickened the entry of economic history into specialization. The basic approaches of research on economic history came into being in the period of this Controversy and the economic history formed in this period presented the formation of "social-economic history". Different from pure history of society or history of economy, it was history of economy with overall horizon and general history insight.In the seventh chapter the paper expounds the methodological significance of the Controversy about social history. Turning to social science for cognition tools and research techniques thus integrating with it was an important approach for historiography to realize modern transition. The Controversy's promoting effect to make historiography a social science finds the full expression in the field of both ancient history and economic history. When the ancient history mainly applies to anthropology and sociology, the economic history employs economics, sociology, statistics and so on.The Controversy helps the integration of historiography and social sciences, enriches and refreshes the research approaches of historiography and agrees with the developing trend of modern historiography.The eighth chapter traces the gains and losses of the Controversy in both theories and materials. The Controversy put much weight on the theoretical approaches. But covered by the scientism, it was regarded as a universal theory and got lost in the misunderstanding of taking Western Europe as the center. Misunderstanding historical materialism as the economic determinism was another harmful trend. However, the positive significance of it lies in that it changed people's belittling attitude towards theories and improved the quality of Chinese historiography. Debaters unearthed historical materials in the two fields of ancient history and economic history. In the field of ancient history, with considerable archaeological materials and legendary materials, the debaters ran beyond "Yi-gu" school and archaeological school and opened a more reasonable way to rebuild the ancient history. However, this didn't change the tension between theories and materials. Shi-huo, the semimonthly magazine, rethought about the relationship between the two and finally found a balance point between them.The conclusion inspects the profound changes in Chinese historiography after the baptism of the Controversy. On the one hand it greatly quickened the formation of Marxist historiography and presented two basic trends: ideological and academic. And on the other hand its radiating power and impact wave affected the pattern and trend of the whole Chinese historiography. Historical materialism school rapidly gained in status and finally stood shoulder to shoulder with historical material school. This is the internal logic for historical materialism school entering the center from the edge after 1949. The essential significance of the Controversy lies in that it formed really history.