Study On Cai He-sen's Historical Materialism Thought

Cai Hesen, being one of the most prominent early leaders from the chinese communist party (CCP), is well known for an outstanding theorist, propagandist, and revolution activist for marxism. As one of the most important founders from the CCP, Cai made a good friend with Mao Zedong sharing the same idea and pursuit. All his life has been devoted to the revolution and the fighting for Marxism. He has done a great to the revolutionary undertakings led by the CCP, and played a significant role in the propagation of marxism in China.In his youthhood, Cai lived an oppressed life, and then tried his best to go to France for both working and studying. Finally, he returned China to be in charge of the weekly Guide. Cai's suffering experience made him to accept the marxist materialistic historism long before, and he devoted all his life to the propagation of the marxist materialistic historism in China. In his representative philosophical works the evolution of societies, Cai elucidated the human's society developing law, and teased the human's society developing venation within the framework of the marxist materialistic historism clued by the origin and evolution of the family, the private regime, and the nation. During the"4th May"cultural campaign, various thoughts such as the capitalist historism, anarchism, and mentalistic historism emerged simultaneously, but Cai unhesitatingly advocated the materialistic historism, and demonstrated the developing direction of society. Therefore, studying Cai's thoughts is meaningful and interesting.At the same time, Cai, being an outstanding proletariate revolutionist, always employed the marxist materialistic historism as a weapon to transform China, and directly served the chinese revolution. In particular, he emphasized that the socialism is the only choice for the transformation of both China and the world, and the impetus and the principle part of the social revolution are the people. This reflected the strong revolutionary practice, and showed its profound historical importance.The first section is introduction.In the second section, the background and the shaping process of Cai accepting the materialistic historism were illuminated, classified into three steps: (1) the germination of the simple materialistic historism under the influence of the traditional culture, (2) the shaping of the materialistic historism during his stay in France, and (3) the development of the materialistic historism after his return to China in charge of the weekly Guide.In the third section, the evolution of societies and Cai's materialistic historism were elucidated. From the three closely related aspects of the origins and evolutions of family, property and nation, Cai's materialistic historism were analyzed in detail, and then the conclusion is that the class fighting is the drive for the development of society, and the human's history is expected to become a communist one at last.In the fourth section, the essences and characteristics of Cai's materialistic historism were elucidated. Referring to Cai's original works and revolutionary practices, three essences of social existence determining social consciousness, People being the impetus and the principle part of the social revolution, and socialism being the only choice for the transformation of China, penetrating Cai's materialistic historism, were put forward. The basic characteristics of revolutionary practice with transforming China and the world as the task, and theoretically criticizing the inaccurate thoughts such as mentalistic historism and anarchism, were analyzed.In the fifth section, the historical value of Cai's materialistic historism was summarized. Combining Cai's theoretical propagation on the materialistic historism with his practical applications, the impact of Cai's materialistic historism on the change of young Mao zedong's world view, and the foundation of Cai's materialistic historism to the new democratic revolutionary theory were elucidated from the historical perspective. We has undertaken a superficial study on Marxism chinalization. At the same time, the limitation of Cai's historical materialism was also pointed out in this paper.