Historical materialism is a science about the general law of human social development. An important part of Marxist philosophy is a scientific view of social history and a general methodology for understanding and transforming society. Also known as historical materialism. Historical materialism was founded by Marx and Engels. They call it historical materialism or historical materialism. Lenin called historical materialism sociology of science, which is the only scientific view of history and the only scientific method of social science, that is, materialist method. E Bernstein and others distorted it as economic materialism. As a scientific historical theory, historical materialism is not only the product of specific social and historical conditions, but also the inevitable result of the development of human knowledge. Since Marx and Engels founded this brand-new historical view in the 1940s of 19, it has been constantly tested in practice, enriched in content and improved in form, and is and will continue to develop in new practice. Historical materialism is a great achievement of human scientific thought, which opens up a new and broad scientific field for human understanding. It has realized the change of the whole social historical view and philosophy, and laid a historical theoretical foundation for Marxist political economy and scientific socialist philosophy.

1. The meaning of materialism and idealism Materialism and idealism are two schools of philosophy formed by different answers to the first aspect of the basic question of philosophy. They can only be used in the philosophical sense, that is, when answering whether thinking or existence, spirit or matter is primary.

(1) Materialism is a philosophy that material is the origin of the world, material is primary and spirit is secondary.

(2) Idealism is a philosophy that asserts that spirit is the origin of the world, that spirit is primary, and that matter is secondary.

(3) All philosophy can't surpass or reconcile materialism and idealism, which is the party spirit or partisanship of philosophy.

(4) Dualism is not an independent school of philosophy. It thinks that spirit and matter are the origin of the world, and tries to reconcile the opposition between materialism and idealism, but eventually falls into idealism.

2. Historical Forms of Materialism (1) Materialism has experienced three historical forms, namely ancient naive materialism, modern metaphysical materialism and modern materialism, namely dialectical materialism and historical materialism.

(2) Materialism, as a universal world outlook, insists on explaining the world as it really is. Materialism and science are essentially the same, which is the philosophical basis of atheism.

(3) ancient naive materialism affirmed the materiality of the world and tried to find the origin of the world from a concrete object. For example, China's ancient Five Elements Theory believed that water, fire and gas in ancient Rome were the origins of the world.

(4) Modern metaphysical materialism is based on modern natural science, but it deviates from the dialectical view that ancient philosophy regards the world as an interrelated whole.

3. The basic types and roots of idealism The basic types of idealism are subjective idealism and objective idealism.

(1) Subjective idealism regards subjective spirit as the only real existence and the source of the world, and objective things and even the whole material world are the products of this subjective spirit. The absurdity is that it will inevitably lead to "solipsism".

(2) The absurdity of objective idealism is that it turns a spirit divorced from any individual into an independent existence and regards it as the source of the world (such as reason, idea, universal spirit, absolute concept, etc.). ), and approved the "religious creationism" in a philosophical way.

(3) The epistemological origin of idealism. People's understanding is not in a straight line, but similar to a spiral curve. Any section of this curve may unilaterally become an independent straight line, leading people into the mud pit of idealism, and the interests and political needs of reactionary or conservative classes and forces will consolidate it. It is the epistemological source of idealism to exaggerate a certain feature, component, fragment and aspect in the process of human cognition and make it absolute, resulting in the separation of subjectivity and objectivity, cognition and practice.