On The Understanding And Practice Of "Tribe Confederacy" By Chinese Scholars

The term "tribe" in ancient Chinese books refers only to primitive villages or settlements,nor does it refer to the form of social organization.Western scholars put forward the concept of tribe and tribe confederacy,mainly refers to a form of social organization,using this concept to refer to the ancient Greek and Roman countries before the emergence of the social stage,It was also Morgen's name for some of the North American Indian consortia.In the 1930 s,with the introduction of Morgen's theory of "clan---tribe confederacye" and Engels' theory of national origin into China,Chinese scholars put forward the theory of military democracy of Chinese tribe confederacy by means of comparative research between China and the West.It also demonstrates the existence of military democracy of tribe confederacy in the period of Yao,Shun and Yu in China and some ethnic minorities in ancient times,with democratic election system and three powers of government.After the 1980 s,some scholars used a large number of archaeological materials and historical documents to re-explore the concept of tribe and tribe confederacy,and thought that there had been misreading of Morgen and Engels' theory.Points out that the most primitive society discussed by Morgen's theory The form of high organization is not a tribe confederacy,nor is Morgen's model oftribe confederacy the only model of the early human national process,which is not universal.