Hu Sheng Historians Study

Being one of the famous historians of the Chinese Communist Party, Hu Sheng makes a great achievement in the area of the Modern History of China and the History of the Chinese Communist Party. He had been thinking deeply for constructing the system of the Modern History of China from 1940s to the last time of his life. For a very long time, that system had been looked up to as the standard by the historians of the Modern China. After 1980s, the focus of the study of Hu Sheng turned to the History of the Chinese Communist Party, and the Seventies of the Chinese Communist Party edited by him has been regarded as one of the most authoritarian books of the History of the Chinese Communist Party.The academic research of the whole life of Hu Sheng had stood togethter through thick and thin with the development of the revolutionary cause of the Chinese Communist Party. When the revolutionary cause of the Chinese Communist Party developed smoothly, so did the achievement of the academic research of Hu Sheng; it was the same the other way round. From this point, we can see clearly that Mr Hu is an intellectual different from the traditional one. As the Marxist Glandsay of Italia said, he is one of the sort of intellectuals called "organic"or"organized" ones, who devotes himself to the revolutionary cause. At first, what he wrote is to meet the revolutionary cause and the objective of the Chinese Communist Party fought for. Above all, he is a soldier, then a scholar.Mr Hu started the research of Modern History of China from 1940s, and his research began with how to replace the current events survey with something else. During this period, his articles were imbued with a strong revolutionary spirit. To a great extent, the academic research of the whole life of him had been influenced by that guiding ideology of writing, which thinks highly the revolutionary spirit of academic research but ignores the basic element of it- objectivity. That guiding ideology had been developed as far as it was during the period between 1957 and 1966; Mr Hu had thrown himself into the critique of the several discussions of the ideological theory actively or passively during the early times of the founding of the People's Republic of China. In contrast to the articles of the others at the period, the views of his was still soft, but there was no denying the fact that his articles did add fuel to the flames to the ideological movements at that time.The tendency of the Political History of Modern China replacing the Modern History of China is present in his research of Modern History of China. Although his research refers to the respects of economics and culture, in a whole the political history is the main theme. For a long time, he insists that the changing of the leading class should be the criterion of the dividing of the Modern History of China, and refutes the more academic criterion: Dividing the periods of the Modern History of China by the nature of society. Obviously, it is to prove the right of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the authority of the New Republic of China, but it isn't enough according to the academic criterion.For studying the History of the Chinese Communist Party, Mr Hu thinks highly of its social effects , although he persists that to study the History of the Chinese Communist Party is freely, he puts a limit on certain questions very tactfully; Although he lays stress on that summing up the historical experience is very important for the service for the social reality, he always avoids studying some problems for the current social reality, always relates something good more about the History of the Chinese Communist Party , and seldom refers to something passive. Thus, we can say that Mr Hu is rather an excellent propagandist than a historian for the studying the History of the Chinese Communist Party.In his later years of life, in respect to the Modern History of China and the History of the Chinese Communist Party, Mr Hu put forward many new ideas different from the ones he did before. That is called the "political reform in his later years " of Hu Sheng by some scholars, and it is believed that the conception of history of him has changed a lot. In fact, it doesn't so. Mr Hu thinks that he upholds historical materialism in his research of history, and the conception of history of him is more often the revolutionary conception of history, what it emphasizes is the pragmatism, but for the historical materialism , its single aims is to search the truth. The new idea of his later years doesn't mean the change in his conception of history. As a matter of fact, what he implies is to include the new model of modernization with the old model of the revolutionary conception of history, to make the theory of modernization a part of the old model of history, at the same time, to realize the new model revolutionized and the old model modernized, and at last to construct a model of history reflecting the reality. In fact, this presents the adaptability and pragmatism of the revolutionary conception of history.As time went by, many academic achievements of Mr Hu needs to be re-study, but this doesn't mean that he makes little contribution to the research of history. For him, we couldn't appraise him by the criterion of a pure scholar, and in a great degree, his academic research provides the theoretical basis for the propaganda of the theory of the Chinese Communist Party. For the most time, he makes a great contribution to the victory of the Chinese Revolutionary and the stale political environment, and in general, most scholars can't match this effect. He fulfils his historical mission according to his historical role.