A Study Of He Qian 's Historical Thoughts

He Ganzhi is a famous theorist of Marxist historiography in Chinese modern history. His historical thoughts, which involve many aspects, had influenced many fields, such as social history, ideological and cultural history, Chinese revolutionary history and the history of the Communist Party of China.First of all, he publicized Marxist historiography which demonstrates the right path for the Chinese revolution. Guided by historical materialism, he fought in intellectual battles by criticizing Chinese and foreign intellectuals of different schools for their views on three focal topics: the nature of Chinese society, the nature of Chinese rural society, and issues about Chinese social history. In the end, he concluded that Chinese society was a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society which was a breakthrough in the theory of social history.In the aspect of ideological history, he demonstrated the course of modern Chinese ideological history by constructing a complete framework of ideological enlightments in Chinese modern history; he also analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of these ideological enlightments: All the work paved way for a new ideological enlightment. On the eve of the Anti-Japanese War, out of concern for the fate of his nation and people as an intellectual, he called on intellectuals to inspect themselves so that they could unite to resist foreign aggressions.Last but not least, he contributed a lot to Chinese revolutionary history and to the history of the Communist Party of China. He kept writing and accomplished the significant Revolutionary History of Modern China. On the other hand, he devoted himself to the education about Chinese revolutionary history and about the history of the Communist Party of China; he nurtured a generation of scholars and teachers for this subject; he kept pioneering new fields of study; and he tried to promote the transition of revolutionary historiography to modern historiography.He Ganzhi is a representative of theorists of Marxist historiography of the older generation. His historical thoughts are an important part of the theory of Marxist historiography, and are an important impetus to the sinicization of Marxism. He contributed a lot to the sinicization of Marxism: he left us rich wealth in the form of thoughts and theories; more importantly, he cultivated new blood, providing talent guarantee for the eternal vitality of Marxism in China. His contributions to the theory of Chinese historiography are worthy of being remembered by everyone who studies history.