How to Study the History of China —— Jane Bozan
Idealists not only attribute the motive force of historical development to the desire of "outstanding people", but also attribute the desire of "outstanding people" to the revelation of God. Carrying out China's theory of destiny in history is the highest development of idealism. According to fate, "outstanding people" are superhuman beings with divinity. Looking at the twenty-four histories, we can see that almost all the founders of those dynasties were born with a sense of heaven, and they should be based on heaven. In modern terms, the founders of these dynasties were all gods, saints and favored sons sent to the world to rule the working people, and their actions were inspired by God. Allah taught them hints through divination and Fu Rui, and they acted according to Allah's hints. In this way, the ultimate motive force of human history does not exist in human society, but seeks explanation from God's revelation. This view is certainly incorrect. To study the history of China from the materialistic point of view, we should first tear off the cloak of deceptive mysticism from the history of China, expose the class essence of idealists, and correctly point out that the driving force of China's historical development is not the desire of "outstanding people", not even the revelation of God, but social economy. Social and economic structure is the real foundation of history. In the final analysis, the concepts of politics, law, religion and philosophy in various periods in history should be explained by social economy, because the concepts of politics, law, religion and philosophy are derivatives of social economy, and will change sooner or later as long as the social economy changes. Social economy determines the development and change of history. Therefore, when we study history, we must study the social economy and its changes in various periods in history, and we must analyze the historical process and specific events caused by such changes. We must never replace the objective laws of the historical process caused by changes in productivity and production relations with accidental factors and personal effects. The objective regularity of historical process. In a word, we should attribute the motive force of history to the mode of production of these material means of subsistence and to the social and economic foundation. The development of history, in the final analysis, is the decisive role of social economy; But this does not mean that ideas are useless. Materialists never deny it, but admit the reaction of ideology to history. Materialists believe that the ideology of each historical era not only passively reflects the social and economic situation of this era, but also actively and positively reacts to the economic situation of this era. Therefore, when we study the history of China, we should not only explain the ideology according to the concrete practice, but also look for their reaction to the social economy from the ideology.