The Sociology Thought Of China’s Early Communists (1919-1927)

Western Sociology spread into China at the time of later period of the QingDynasty to early period of republic china. At that time, many early Chinesecommunists, including Mao Zedong, all had grasped a certain degree of the WesternSociological theory. There have two ways for people to introduced western sociologyto china: introduced from the western country directly or introduced from Japanindirectly. Japan became the transit point of Chinese people learning western cultureand the mainly place for Chinese intellectuals to study abroad after the jiawuSino-Japanese War. The representative of early Chinese Communists like Lidazhaomay be directly studied sociology course, during the period of he was studying inJapan, Japanese sociology doctrine had a great influence on early Chinesecommunists.Chinese people are no longer blindly search the way to capitalism from westerncountry, and socialist appeared in china as a new hope, after the victory of the RussianOctober Revolution. At that time the former Soviet Union banned Western Sociologygradually in their domestic, and in order to establish proletarian sociology, the FormerSoviet leader like Lenin and Stain try to use Historical Materialism to modify westernsociology, the former Soviet Union Sociology doctrine introduced to china by theearly Chinese communists when they study the revolutionary theory and experienceof the former Soviet Union.The early Chinese Communists like Lidazhao, Quqiubai, Lida also attempted tomodify western sociology by historical materialism in the process of learning westernsociology and Marxism. LiDazhao believe that the law of historical materialismeconomic is a great contribution for the development of sociology. The commonsociology textbook of Historical Materialism Marxism—a book Bukharin usehistorical Materialism modified sociology--has been translate to Chinese as “themodern sociology” by Quqiubai. In addition Lida who complete modified the Westernsociology by Historical Materialism and published the modern sociology. The systemof the Historical Materialism sociology has formed through the effort of the earlyChinese Communists like Lidazhao, Quqiubai, Lida. The question of the developmentprocess, social structure and class structure, the history of social development, socialissues have been thorough studied by the early Chinese communists. But the western sociological doctrine still was the mainstream in china at that time. There was greatdifference at the doctrine of sociology between the early Chinese Communists andother intellectuals when they research the way to modify Chinese society, thecharacter of society, population issues and so on, at that period of china.The theoretical and practical meaning of the early Chinese communists usehistorical materialism modified western sociology was important. LIDA research theconditions of the social revolution in modern society, the national leadership of therevolution in modern china, the weaker countries must get help from proletariat of theadvanced countries at the process of their national revolution and so on in the bookmodern sociology, the result of these research have great meaning for Chineserevolution.