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Mirror to Revolution: Early Marxist Images of Chinese History*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Arif Dirlik
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Historical materialism entered Chinese thought as part of the new wave of socialism during the New Culture movement. By the late 1920's, during the ebb of communism as a political movement, it had gained a foothold in the consciousness of many Chinese intellectuals. Its application to the analysis of Chinese history reached its peak in the “social history controversy” of the late twenties and early thirties.1 After the mid-thirties interest in the Marxist discussion of history dwindled, not reaching a comparable degree of intensity until its revival after 1949.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , February 1974 , pp. 193 - 223
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1974

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References

1 Chung-kuo she-hui shih lun-chan. The phrase became popular after its adoption as the title of the special double issues of the Tu-shu tsa-chih (hereafter TSTC) which was the main forum for the discussion between 1931 and 1933. The issues were I.4-5 (August, 1931), 2.2-3 (March, 1932), 2.7-8 (August, 1932) and 3.3-4 (April, 1933).

2 See, for example, Sung Shee, “Developments in Historical Studies in Mainland China”, Part I, in Issues and Studies, 5.7:18–28, (April, 1969).Google Scholar

3 Fcucrwerker, A. (ed.). History in Communist China, (Cambridge, 1969), 28.Google Scholar

4 For such a view of the controversy as leading to the victory of one view over another paralleling the political victory of one strategy over others see Lü Chen-yü, “The Struggle between Marxism and Pseudo-Marxism on History and Philosophy during the Time of the Second Revolutionary Civil War”, translated in Chinese Studies in History and Philosophy. 1.2:46–80 (Winter 1967–68). “Notwith-standing the fact that they ⁛i.e., “Marxist historical workers] might have some differences in assessing the social characteristics of some dynasties in history and might have some views that are unilateral [sic] or fail to conform entirely to the historical reality, nevertheless they are unanimous in upholding the Marxist-Leninist principle and position, in dealing serious blows to the pseudo-Marxists and in under-taking the arduous task of defending Marxism and revolution. They mercilessly exposed the ‘fake’ materialists of the ‘New Life School’ [i.e. KMT Marxists] and the Trotskyists who tainted ‘his-torical materialism’ by publicizing their ‘ignominous conduct of confounding the masses’ [sic]’, 68–69.Google Scholar

5 The contrast between the two periods also sug-gests that studies of history in the People's Republic should put greater emphasis on changing ideas on revolutionary strategy, rather than the simple (and often simplistic) preoccupation with the needs for legitimacy of the communist regime. This, I think, is one factor among others in the valuable insights contributed by J. P. Harrison's study of the histori-ography of peasant rebellions in China. See Harri-son, The Communists and Chinese Peasant Rebel-lions (New York, 1968). A recent article by Kuo Mo-jo on periodizations confirms the importance of this element. There Kuo identifies certain interpre-tations of the origins of the Chinese empire with the “counterrevolutionary line of the Liu Shao-ch'i clique”. See Kuo, “Chung-kuo ku-tai shih ti fen-ch'i wen-t‘i’”, in Hung Ch'i, no. 7, (July 1972).Google Scholar

6 That the concern for revolutionary strategy underlay the study of history was explicitly stated by Wang Li-hsi, editor of the TSTC, in his intro-duction to the controversy in that journal. See Wang, “Chung-kuo she-hui shih lun-chan hsü-mü”, TSTC, I.4–5, 9–10. Also see Ho Kan-chih, Chung-kuo she-hui hsing-chih wen-t'i lun-chan, (Shanghai, 1937). preface, I.Google Scholar

7 This is a common allegation among critics of the controversy. For examples see Cheng Hsüeh-chia, She-hui shih lun-chan ti ch'i-yin ho nei-jung, (Taipei, 1965) and shan, Hsu Wen-, lun, Chung-kuo shih-hsüch kai-, (Taipei, 1967), esp. pp. 123–124.Google Scholar

8 See Mannheim, K., Ideology and Utopia, (New York), for the significance of ideology as an ex-pression of basic world outlook (the “total concep-tion of ideology”). For a specific treatment of history and ideology, see Mannheim's essay, “His-toricism”, in Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, (New York, 1952), pp. 84–133.Google Scholar

9 It is noteworthy that Chinese intellectuals wel-comed the Russian revolution as ushering in a new age of social revolution (in contrast to the French revolution which had opened up the age of politi-cal revolution) before there was a communist move-ment in China. Neither was this perception re-stricted to people who eventually became com-munists. See Chow Tse-tsung, The May Fourth Movement, (Stanford, 1967), 60.Google Scholar

10 The discussion was described at the time as “re-evaluation” (hui-hsiang). The term, to my knowledge, was first used by T'ao Hsi-sheng in the preface to his Chung-kuo feng-chien she-hui shih, (Shanghai, 1929)- There T'ao remarked that now that the revolution had encountered an ob-stacle, there was need for its reevaluation in order to recognize what had not been recognized before, even if that might lead to disagreement with one's comrades. The term was adopted by Wang I-ch‘ang as a description of the first phase of the discussion, covering roughly the years 1927–1930. See Wang, “Chung-kuo she-hui shih lun shih”, TSTC, 2.2–3,25Google Scholar

11 Opposition to mass movements was first of-ficially expressed in the “special committee” (t'e-pieh wei-yuan-hui) of September 1927.Google Scholar It was con-firmed in the fourth plenary session of the second central committee in February 1928 when Chiang K‘ai-shek came out in favor of the policy.The split was formalized when the left organized “the Reorganization society” (Kai-tsu t‘ung-chih hut) in the Winter of 1928, vowing to preserve the revolu-tionary spirit of the party reorganization of 1924.Google Scholar

12 For Trotsky's criticisms see Trotsky, L., Problems of the Chinese Revolution, ed. by Schachtman, Max, (Ann Arbor, 1967).Google Scholar

13 It is interesting that a similar interest in Chi-nese history emerged in the Soviet Union in the second half of the twenties, accompanying the dis-agreements there on the correct policy to be pur-sued in China. Chinese Marxists knew about the writings of Comintern. “China experts” and were possibly inspired by them. In an interview in November 1969 in Taipei, T‘ao Hsi-sheng told me that even in 1927, revolutionaries in Wuhan were cognizant of these coritroveries in Moscow and that there was a lively controversy carried on through pamphlets in Wuhan discussing these views. The Hsin sheng-ming translated articles by K. Wittfogel, L. Madgyar, E. Varga arguing for Asiatic Society through its publication years from 1928 to 1930. An important contribution from the Comintern was K. Radek‘s lectures in Sun Yat-sen University which were compiled by his Chinese students and: published in 1929 as Chung-kuo ko-ming yün-tung shih in Shanghai. Radek gave an in-terpretation of Chinese society similar to the one later adopted by T‘ao Hsi-sheng, i.e., a society dominated by commercial capital. This view sup-ported Trotsky's contention in the Comintern that, contrary to Stalin, Chinese society was not feudal but bourgeois in nature. During the con-troversy, book length works by Comintern authors were translated into Chinese, some of them more than once.

14 Many journals were involved in the contro-versy. Some of the more important were Hsin sheng-ming associated with the KMT, Hsin ssu ch‘ao associated with the CCP, Tung-li published by Trotskyites briefly in 1930 and Tu-shu tsa-chih which after 1931 became a forum for many dis-illusioned communists. Its editor was Wang Li-hsi, associated by many with the “Anti—Bolshevik clique” (AB-p‧ai).

15 The controversy on antiquity evolved out of Kuo Mo-jo‘s Chung-kuo ku-tai she-hui yen-chiu, a compilation of earlier articles published as a book in 1930. This discussion, by no means isolated from the rest of the controversy, concentrated pri-marily on the early Chou period around the issue of slavery. See below for Kuo's arguments in that book.

16 In our interview, T‘ao told ’me that many of them were concerned with the nihilistic histori-ography of the “antiquity-doubters” (i-ku). Some of the social historians were also among violent critics of Ku Chieh-kang on the grounds that his methodology did not go beyond textual criticism and that he was able only to discredit ancient texts, not to explain ancient society. See, Li Chi, “Tui-y⃼ Chung-kuo she-hui shih lun-chan ti kung-hsien y⃼ p‘i'-p‘ing,” pt.I, TSTC, 2.2-3, (March 1932) and Liang Y⃼an-tung, “‘Ku-shih-pien-t‘i shih-hseh fang-fa shang-ch⃼ch,” Tung-fang tsa-chih, 27.22,24, (Nov.-Dec. 1930). In 1935 Fung Yu-lan described the histonographical trend of the thirties as “ex-plaining antiquity” (shih-fyt) in contrast to the earlier trends of “believing antiquity” (hsin-ku) and “doubting antiquity” (i-ku). The social his-torians were among the most enthusiastic “explain-ers.” It is interesting that Ku Chieh-kang himself showed much greater interest in social explanations in the thirties. See L. Schneider, Ku Chieh-kang and China‘s New History, (Berkeley, 1972).Google Scholar

17 The books and journals on social history were the rage of the Chinese reading public. T‘ao's books became best-sellers immediately. His first book went through eight printings between 1929 and 1933, each time between 2000 and 5000 copies. Kiio‘s book went through three prints in as many months. The first special issue of TSTC was printed twice in ten days and sold out, this in spite of the fact that most of the contributors were rela-tively unknown. Sec Ch‘i Ssu-hou, “Chin pat nien lai Chung-kuo shih-hsüeh ti fa-chan,” in Yen-ching she-hui k‘o-hsüeh, no. 2, (October 1949), 30.Google Scholar

18 The periodizations in this table are mostly from articles published in the TSTC and the Hsin sheng-ming. In some cases they were derived from book-length studies. For a complete bibliography, see A. Dirlik, Revolution and History: Debates on Chinese Social History, 1928–1933, Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, 1972.

19 T‘ao changed his periodization, now including slavery as a stage, in 1932. See “Chung-Kuo she-hui hsing-shih fa-ta kuo-ch‘eng ti hsin ku-ting,” TSTC, 2.7–8 (August 1932).Google Scholar

20 These authors disagreed on timing neverthe-less. Kuo regarded slavery as having come to an end by the Spring-Autumn period, T‘ao and Wang pushed it into the Period of Disunity, fourth-fifth centuries A. D.

21 Few, including T‘ao in his later periodization, regarded early Chou as a gens (i.e. primitive) society. This never became a serious alternative in the discussion.

22 Franz Oppenheimer, The Stale: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically (Indianapolis, 1914); Bogdanoff, A (pseud. A. A. Malinovskii), A Short Course of Economic Science (London, 1927). See Wang I-ch‘ang, op. cit. pp. 25–27 for their role in the discussion.Google Scholar

23 Frederick Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Set-cntific (New York, 1935). Sec p. 73 for Engcls description of medieval society.Google Scholar

24 Chung-kuo she-hui chih shih ti fen-hsi (Shang-hai, 1929); Chung-k.no feng-chien she-hui shih (Shanghai, 1929); Chung-kuo she-hui yü Chung-kuo kp'rniflg (Shanghai, 1931); Chung-kuo she-hui hsien-hsiang shih-Iing (Shanghai, 1931). (Here-after CKSHCSTFH, CKFCSHS, CKSHYCKKM, CKSHHHSL). These were for the most part col-lections of articles published in the Hsin Sheng-ming, 1928–1930.

25 op. at.

26 Kuo, being away from China, was not involved bur rhe debate continued among others, notably Wang I-ch‘ang and Liu Hsing-t‘ang. See the exchange in Wcn-hua p‘i-p‘an, 1.2, 4–5, 6 (June-October 1034).

27 Kuo, op. nr., 6.

28 When T‘ao changed his periodization in 1932, he gave dissatisfaction with the inordinate length of the transition stage as an important reason.

29 This was the Stalinist interpretation of Chinese society and its advocates included the leadership of the time (Li Li-san) as well as the emerging advocates of a rural strategy of revolution.

30 The foremost advocates of this view in China were Jen Shu and Yen Ling-feng. Trotsky's own arguments had stressed the power of the bourgeoisie in China. Chinese Trotskyites, understandably, de-duced from this (as did some Russian leaders such as Zinoviev) that China was already capitalist. Jen Shu, Chung-kiio ching-chi yen-chin hsü-lun (Shanghai, 1932) and Yen Ling-feng, Chung-kuo ching-chi wen-t‘i yen-chiu (Shanghai 1931).

31 These were close associates of Wang Ching-wei. In the winter of 1928, they organized the “Reorganizationist Society” (Kai-tsa t‘ung-chili hut) to preserve the spirit of the reorganization of 1924 (i.e., commitment to revolutionary mass mobiliza-tion, though not class struggle), which, they felt, had been betrayed by the KMT. Prominent leaders were Ch'en Kung-po and Ku Meng-yü. T‘ao Hsisheng was associated with this group (for which he lost his job) but also had valuable contacts in Chiang's camp like Chou Fo-hai and Ch'en Pu-lei.Google Scholar

32 The contributions from this standpoint were the sparsest in the discussion. Feudal and semi-feudal were often used interchangeably though there were differences of emphasis. The most en-thusiastic advocates of feudal society denied any significance to the changes at the end of Chou, such as political centralization and (he release of land for purchase. Sec Chu P‘ei-wo for this position below. Others, like Li Li-san, P‘an Tung-chou and Wang Hsüch-wen made room for such changes but insisted that the basic economic relations in China had remained more feudal than anything else.For a discussion of contemporary China, sec Tung-chou, P‘an, “Chung-kuo kuo-min ching-chi ti kai-tsao wen-t‘i” in She-hui k‘o-hsiich chiang-tso, V. i, (Shanghai, 1930).Google Scholar

33 There is no doubt that this was a major factor in the insistence that China was feudal. Some in China opposed the Asiatic society description on the grounds that it obscured this necessity of revo-lution.See chih, Ho Kan-, Chung-kuo she-hui shih wen-t‘i lun-chan, (Shanghai, 1937), 2.Google Scholar

34 T'ao, CKSHCSTFH, op. eft., p. 29. Also Yü Chih (pseud. Ku Meng-yü), “Nung-min yü t‘u-ti wen-t‘i” in T‘ao (ed.), Chung-kuo she-hui chih hui-ku yü chan-wang (Shanghai, 1930), 261–62.Google Scholar

35 Jen Shu was one that argued that capitalism had come to China from abroad; Li Chi, on the other hand, insisted that China had been prepared for it by native developments. See below for his ideas.

36 e.g., Li Chi.

37 Wang I-ch‘ang, op. cit., 25.

38 T‘ao hardly ever refers to Bogdanoff in his work. In the early stages the influence of Oppen-heimer was the most important; by the time he fully developed the idea of commercial society, his references were primarily to Marx.

39 There is no doubt that T‘ao knew about Radek‘s ideas by the time his own ideas were de-veloped. See Fang Chün-feng (pseud. T‘ao Hsi-sheng), “T‘uo-lo-ssu-chi p‘ai chih Chung-kuo she-hui lun,” Hsin sheng-ming, 3.5 (May 1930). I have had no way of ascertaining whether T‘ao knew of Radek's work when he started his analysis.Google Scholar

40 üeh, Fang (pseud. T‘ao Hsi-sheng), “Shang-jcn tzu-pen hsiao shih,” Hsin sheng-ming, 3.4 (April 1930). This was a translation of Chapter 20 in the third volume of Capital, “Historical Facts about Merchants Capital.” T‘ao introduced his translation as “a systematic exposition of merchant's capital by a famous 19th century European economist.”Google Scholar

41 Schwartz, B. I., “A Marxist Controversy in China,” Far Eastern Quarterly, 13.2 (February 1954), 149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 “Natural self-sufficing” included primitive and feudal societies; “commercial” included “slave,” “serf” and “capitalist” societies.

43 Few at the time were willing to use overtly the description “commercial society,” sensing prob-ably the “heterodoxy” implicit in the name.

44 Marx, Karl, Capital, V. 3, (New York, 1970), 331–332.Google Scholar

45 For a concise expression of Marx's theory of social development see his preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Pohttcal Economy, (Chicago, 1904).Google Scholar

46 Marx, Capital, III, 332.

47 T'ao, CKFCSHS, 16–20.

48 Ibid. 23.

49 Yüeh, Fang (pseud. T'ao Hsi-sheng), “Feng-chien chih-tu chih hsia-mieh,” Hsin shcng-ming, 2.3, 4, 5, (March-May 1929). This in part 3, 4.Google Scholar

50 T'ao, CKFCSHS, 24–33. Quotation from 32–33.

51 Ibid., 23.

52 Fang, , “Feng-chien chih-tu chih hsiao-mieh,” op. cit., part 1, 7.Google Scholar

53 T'ao cited the power of the ruling class, the gentry and the military, tsung-fa and Confucian thought as examples of feudal characteristics that had persisted.

54 T'ao, CKSHCSTFH, 26.

55 T'ao, CKFCSHS, 46.

56 Fang, “Chung-kuo feng-chien chih-tu chih hsiao-mieh,” op. cit., part 2, 1–10.

57 T'ao, CKSHCSTFH, 260.

58 Ch'i-hua, Chu (pseud. Chu P'ei-wo), Chung-kuo she-hut ti ching-chi chieh-kuo (Shanghai, 1932), 295–296.Google Scholar

59 Hsin-fan, Chu (pseud. Chu P'ei-wo), “Kuan-yii Chung-kuo she-hui chih feng-chien hsing ti t'ao-lun,” TSTC, 1.4–5. 14–15.Google Scholar

60 Chu Ch'i-hua, op. cit., 282.

61 “The nominal owner of the land, using.non-. economic oppression, extorts the surplus labor of the independent producer.” Chu Hsin-fan, op. cit., 5. The passage in Marx is as follows: “The direct producer, according to our assumption, is to be found here in possession of his own means of production, the necessary material labor conditions required for the realization of his labor and the production of his means of subsistence. … Under such conditions the surplus-labor for the nominal owner of the land can only be extorted from him by other than economic pressure, whatever the form assumed may be. Capital, III, 790–91. As for the condition of self-sufficiency, Chu resorts to Engels. But it is clear from his definition of feudalism that he gives precedence to exploitative relations. To understand an economic system, he says, “…wc must first examine the exploitative relations of that system …,” Chu Ch'i-hua, op. cit., 277.

62 Ibid., 304–305.

63 Ibid., 296.

64 Ibid., 311–315.

65 Ibid., 309–310.

66 Ibid., 242–243.

67 Sec note 55 above. It is clear from Marx's statement chat as the peasant owns his own means of production, the lord has no economic leverage over him and can only acquire surplus product through coercion.

68 Chi, Li, “Tui-yü Chung-kuo she-hui shih lun-chan ti kung-hsien yü p'i-p'ing,” TSTC, 2.2–3:1–150 (March 1932), 2.7–8:1–62 (August 1932), 3.3–4:1–86 (April 1933). Part 1, 51.Google Scholar

69 Ibid., 51–52.

70 Ibid., part 2, 48.

71 Ibid., part 3, 33.

72 See for instance Ma-chia (Madgyar), Chung-kuo nttng-ts'ttn ching-chi chili t'e-hsing, tr. by Hua, Tsung, (Shanghai, 1930). IntroductionGoogle Scholar

73 Ch'iu-yüan, Hu, “Ya-hsi-ya sheng-ch'an fang-shih yu chuan-chih chu-i,” TSTC, 2.7–8:1–23 (August, 1932)Google Scholar and Li-hsi, Wang, “Chung-kuo she hui hsing-t'ai fa-chan shih chung chih mi ti shih-tai, “TSTC, 2.7–8:1–39 (August, 1932).Google Scholar The views of Hu and Wane are quite reminiscent of those of the Soviet historian M. N. Pokrovskii and both authors do indeed acknowledge this. See Pokrovskii, M. N., Russia in World History, Ed. by Roszporluk, , (An Arbor, 1970).Google Scholar

74 Ho, Ckung-kuo she-hui shih wen-t'i lun-chan, op. cit., 3–4.

75 Tao, “Chung-kuo she-hui tao-ti shih shen-mo she-bui?,” in CKSHCSTFH. The concern for revolution was also evident in most of the articles in this book. They generally started off with a theo-retical discussion of some aspect or other of Chou society from which T'ao derived policies for the KMT in closing his discussion.

76 See Feuerwerker, op. cit. for the general ac: ceptance of this scheme in China. Kuo Mo-jo's article cited in note 5 indicates that this periodization of history persists in the People's Republic.

77 T'ao Hsi-sheng's interest in social history derived from an earlier interest in legal history, and the insights provided by the English legal historian H. Maine. K, Kautsky and F. Oppenheimer were the steps through which he finally reached Marxism. Those authors proved influential in T'ao's interpretation of Marxism and their influence persistedin his work to the end. Hu Ch'iu-yüan arrived at Marxism via an interest in art history and G. Plekhanov's interpretation of art. For some of the other participants on whom information is available and their careers, see Dirlik, op. cit.

78 See note 18 above. The reason T'ao gave for the change was that the imperial period was too long and too complex to be regarded as one unit. See Kwok, D., Scientism in China (New Haven, 1965) for the “scientism” of the social historians.Google Scholar

79 During the earlier period of the controversy, pressure for orthodoxy prevented the participants from challenging Marx openly and they took recourse to “transition” periods. It is interesting that some writers were willing to depart from Marx by the mid-thirties. One declared commercial society to be a stage in its own right, long after T'ao, the original proponent of the idea in China, had given it up. See the series of articles by Li Li-chung in Shih huo pan-yüeh-k‘an, 3.5:3–21, 4.4:3–10, 5.2: I–II.

80 Hsi-sheng, Tao, “She-hui k'o-hsiieh chiang-tso,” Hsin sheng-tning, 2.5.Google Scholar This was part of a scries of discussions on social science by T‘ao. In this one, he discussed Marx and Marxism. T‘ao here examined historical materialism in its two aspects as method and the application of method. He argued that if the method was really scientific, it should yield different results when applied to different circumstances, like one gets different elements when one applies chemical analysis to water and salt. For another protest against ignoring the peculiarities of each society see Po-ta, Ch'en, “Yen-chiu Chung-kuo she-hui fang-fa lun ti chi-ko hsien chtieh wen-t‘i,” Wen Shih, 1.3:13'29, (August, 1934).Google Scholar

81 This was a common allegation in the con-troversy. It has been noted by others as well. See the works cited in note 7.

82 Kuo remains to this day as one of the major experts on early Chou with his work on oracle bones and bronzes. T‘ao, before he went into politics for good in 1937, was one of the foremost social historians in China (at Peita) and the journal he established in 1933, Shih huo, was one of the first important journals in China on social and economic history. T‘ao's own interpretations of Chinese history, e.g., the rise of commerce and the development of a gentry society, have been supported in the works of later historians such as W. Eberhard and Hsü Cho-yün.

83 Ssu-hou, Ch‘i, “Hsien-tai Chung-kuo shih-hsiieh p'ing-lun,” Ta Chung, 1.1:33'38, (January, 1947).Google Scholar

84 Ching-lu, Chang, Chung-kuo hsien-tai eh'u-pan shih-liao (Shanghai, 1957). Chang describes 1929 as the year when publications in social science began to overshadow publications in other fields. Vol. 2, 7.Google Scholar

85 Liang Ch‘i-ch'ao, for one, displayed an awareness of the importance of society in politics and hence as a subject of history as early as the 1900’$. See his “Hsin shih-hsiieh” published in 1902. Not surprisingly, his call for a new history of the people in this essay was combined with an evolutionary view of history and it is quite probable that evolutionist theories were first responsible for the greater stress on society from the late nineteenth century. Liang later elaborated his ideas on social history in his Chung-kuo li-shih yen-chiu fa (1921) and the “supplement” to that work in 1926. In the twenties there were many other expressions of interest in social history, some of them on a relatively large scale, e.g. the controversy over the “well-field” in the mid-twenties. The significant point for the years after 1930 is that while earlier expressions of interest remained isolated, in the thirties social history was the order of the day.

86 Hsü Wen-shan, loc. cit.

87 Attempts to explain the appeal of historical materialism solely in terms of “China's response to the West” would have difficulty explaining why Comintern authors in the Soviet Union showed such an interest in and wrote on Chinese history from the materialist perspective.

88 The conclusions of KMT partisans like T‘ao Hsi-sheng may leave the impression that they rejected the importance of social forces. Even in these cases, however, the conclusions were based on social analysis and in no way denied the general validity of basic Marxian presuppositions.

89 This is not to suggest that a tradition as complex as China‘s can be treated as a homogeneous unit. But the image of an ideal society from the past persisted to the end, reaffirmed especially in times of crisis and protest, as in T‘ang and Sung protests against Buddhism and early Ch‘ing protests against despotism. There is no question that even these may be misleading and that the relationship between history, society and politics requires further study. In a recent article, Robert M. Hartwell argues that there were the beginnings of social science in twelfth-thirteenth century China which was aborted due to preoccupation with trivia and practise, the effects of classicism and the insufficient development of logical method. Sec Hart-well, “Historical Analogism, Public Policy and Social Science in Eleventh- and Twelfth Century China,” The American Historical Review, 76.3:690–727, (June, 1971). Mr. Hartwell’s arguments are very cogent and the developments within Sung thought that he points out are quite intriguing (in particular the growth of institutional histories). Particularly relevant for our purposes is the role of classicism: “Classicism created an even less congenial atmosphere for the development of compositive social theory. The repudiation of post-classical history severely restricted the empirical basis for a study of society, the desire to re-create a ‘documented’ ideal antiquity obviated the problem of explaining an undesigned order in human social behavior, and the exclusive authority of the Confucian canon and the commentary of accepted interpreters eliminated any need for a logical method of demonstration and proof.” 726–727.

90 For K’ang's reinterpretation of Confucianism sec Hsiao Kung-ch'üan, “K'ang Yu-wei and Confucianism,'” Monumenta Scrica, Vol. 18 (1959), 96–212.Google Scholar

91 This interpretation of the New Culture movement may seem unfair in treating its thinkers as one and putting more emphasis on the views of some than on others (e.g. Hu Shih vs. Ch’en Tu-hsiu). Regardless of an increasing concern with politics through the period, I feel that the basic emphasis of the movement was cultural, especially in the early stages and that this continued into the twenties now side by side with politics. L. Sullivan and R. H. Solomon confirm this in a recent study of the Hsin ch'ing-nien. See “Formation of Ideology in the May Fourth Era: A Content Analysis of Hsin ch'ing nien” in Johnson, C.Google Scholar (ed.), Ideology and Politics in Contemporary China (Seattle, 1973).Google Scholar