The Theory Of Historical Figures And Their Evaluation

The fact that the bourgeoisie became betrayers in the1848European Revolution was a heavy burden to the founders of Marxism. The standard of evaluating historical figures learned from the bitter memory played an important role in their inquiry to the new theory.and had profound impact on the way of thinking and the narrative style of Marx and Engels.Because of Engels’theoretical research and revolutionary practice, the anger provoked by the result of the1848Revolution actually became a "scientific" part of Marxist system. The logic behind the evaluation standard, taking action as proof only, was the answer of Marx and Engels to the classic question "what is the content of history", which not only taught the people how to see through and judge the figures in the revolutionary struggle, but also became the basic way of Marxist historical writing.Concentrating on "why did history exist before prehistory"to unscramble Marx and Engels’s insight into the nature of history, probing into Engels’standard and deducing the definition of "historical figure", and summing up the principle in shaping the evaluating standards on the basis of Raymond Williams’semantic interpretation of the key word "standard", all provide some new methods in rethinking "what is history","who could be historical figures "and how the standard of evaluating historical figures works", which are the key points of historical theory and historical materialism.