The study of China's modern political history was relatively neglected for a period of time. Since 1980s, the study of modern cultural history in China has risen and become a hot spot. At that time, looking back, the study of China's modern history focused on revolutionary history and political history, and it was necessary to broaden the field, so people paid attention to the cultural field. However, in the "cultural craze", there is a phenomenon of belittling political history. Some researchers believe that the study of political history is superficial and superficial, and only the study of culture can enter the deep layer of history and be at the center. Subsequently, the modern social history of China also attracted the interest of scholars, and the research on it was in the ascendant. But similar to the "cultural craze", it belittles the study of political history and even advocates replacing history with social history. Whether these statements are accurate is worth pondering. Although I study the modern cultural history of China, I don't think culture is the center of history. In a conversation with Professor Bai Shouyi, I once talked about what is the center of history. Mr. Bai believes that history mainly focuses on politics, and politics is the backbone of history. Although economy is the foundation, it is restricted by politics, and culture is more restricted by politics. Culture cannot be the center of history. Not many words, but very incisive.
Samuel huntington, a famous American scholar, published the article Clash of Civilizations a few years ago, which aroused strong international repercussions. This paper holds that the future international conflict is not a conflict between economy and ideology, but a conflict between western culture, Confucian culture and Islamic culture. Obviously, this takes culture as the center of society and plays a decisive role. No matter in history or in real society, culture undoubtedly has its due role, but it is not in the central position and cannot play a decisive role. As far as the international community is concerned, the first priority is economic and political interests. The United States sells its values and culture to other countries to realize its economic and political interests. The fundamental factor of the Gulf War is not the so-called conflict between Islamic culture and western culture. Huntington wrote the book Clash of Civilizations and Reconstruction of World Order on the basis of the article Clash of Civilizations, which provided a comprehensive, profound and more detailed solution to the problems raised in his article. Although he still tries to explain in his book that the fundamental factor is the conflict between Islamic culture and western culture, he cannot but admit that "the Gulf War was the first resource war between civilizations after the Cold War". He said: "The most crucial question is: Will the world's largest oil reserves be controlled by the Saudi government and the government of the United Arab Emirates, which rely on western military forces to protect their security, or by an independent anti-western regime, which has the ability and possibility to use oil weapons against the West? The west failed to overthrow Saddam Hussein, but won some kind of victory, which made the Gulf countries rely on the west for security. Before the war, Iran, Iraq, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the United States competed for influence in the Gulf region. After the war, the Persian Gulf became the inner lake of the United States. " [1] thinks that the key to this war is to fight for the control of "the world's largest oil reserve". "After the war, the Persian Gulf became the inner lake of the United States", which are the essence. Countries with the same Islamic culture can fight each other for economic and political interests such as oil and strategic position, and they can also support and participate in the war against Iraq organized by the United States. This shows that the fundamental factor of the Gulf War is not the war between Islamic culture and western culture, but the conflict between economic and political interests.
One reason for belittling the study of China's modern political history is that some researchers think that the political history written in China's modern history is a history of class struggle, and some even accuse it of "focusing on class struggle". Engels pointed out in the preface written in 1888 for the English version of the Producers' Party Manifesto: "All history (since the disintegration of the original land public ownership) is the history of class struggle", which is "the basic idea that constitutes the core of the Manifesto" [2]. Lenin also said: "Class relations-this is the fundamental and main thing. Without class relations, there would be no Marxism [3]. If we insist on the guidance of Marxism to historical research, we can't do without class analysis and class struggle theory. As for equating class struggle with "taking class struggle as the key link", it is a confusion of different issues.
The weakening of the study of China's modern political history is also due to historians' emphasis on the study of major events from the Opium War to the War of Liberation, with many achievements. Therefore, the starting point of further research is higher, the progress is more difficult, and greater efforts are needed. However, these major events are not without further study, and there are still many problems that are not fully understood, and some problems need further study. That is, taking Sun Yat-sen as an example, a number of related materials have been discovered in recent years, but they have not been well used for research; Researchers have different views on his thoughts and other comments. In addition, there is no biography with high academic value and weight.
Major events are an important part of China's modern political history, but they are not the same as China's modern political history, and they are not all its contents. The content of China's modern political history is very rich and can't be ignored. The study of China's modern cultural history and social history has expanded the field of China's modern history, which is undoubtedly meaningful. However, it is inappropriate to advocate this and suppress that. Politics, economy, culture, military affairs and diplomacy all need to be studied, which is necessary and valuable.
Second, we should pay attention to both micro-research and comprehensive research.
In recent years, the study of China's modern history tends to be detailed, focusing on specific issues, and has made gratifying achievements. Concrete and microscopic research is necessary, which is the basis of comprehensive research, but if it is too detailed, it will become pure "fragmentation". Modern China has a history of 100 years, with many people and events. It is neither possible nor necessary to study all the details or minor problems one by one. Even if you study it, it doesn't explain anything. Detailed research needs to consider whether the selected topics have research value. The topics with research value should not only be practical, but also be clearly described, and should be investigated in the big background to explain the problems.
On the basis of specific microscopic research, we should pay attention to comprehensive research. For a long time, we have done a lot of classified research and special research on the modern history of China, and we are qualified to do comprehensive research.
In our research work, disciplines and majors, literature, history, philosophy and so on belong to different disciplines. There are ancient history of China, modern history of China, world history and all kinds of special history. People who study the modern history of China are different from those who specialize in a major historical event. This kind of division of labor is too narrow and specialized, which is not conducive to the development of history discipline, the cultivation of talents, the production of fine products and comprehensive research. Many figures in the history of China are familiar with classics, history, Confucianism, literature and Buddhism. The research on them should be comprehensive, not limited to one aspect. For example, Wei Yuan, in his works on the history of modern and contemporary China, mainly wrote his thoughts on managing the world, with special emphasis on The Atlas of the Sea and his famous saying "Learn from foreigners and learn from them to control them". Undoubtedly, Wei Yuan's thoughts on governing the country and his representative work "The Chart" should be emphatically analyzed. However, Wei Yuan is well-read. When he was young, he studied Yangming's mind and loved reading history books. Later, I followed my father to the capital, asked Hu about Han Confucianism, learned from Yao Xueshu m: ng @ ①, learned from Liu Ram, and practiced Zen in my later years. He has written a lot in his life, including Zhang Sentence, Ancient University Books, Yong Yi, Shuo Ya, Ancient Classics for Primary School, Textual Research on Ancient Classics of Han Dynasty, Original Meaning of Laozi, Annotation of Sun Tzu, Annotation of Dong Zi's Spring and Autumn Annals, etc. A profound study of Wei Yuan should not only focus on one aspect, but also need a comprehensive study. This is related to the knowledge structure of researchers and should meet the requirements of "general knowledge". A subject also has the problems of up-and-down connection and left-and-right connection, and strives to change the state of being too professional and separated from each other.
3. Reality and history cannot be confused.
Today's China developed from historical China, and phenomenon and history are inseparable. Historical researchers all live in the real society, and the problems in the real society will undoubtedly cause researchers to think about history. However, reality and history cannot be equated, and they are both related and different. This is common sense that needs no elaboration, and it looks very clear. However, in practical research, the boundary between them is often confused. For example, since the late 1970s, we have been carrying out socialist modernization, focusing on economic construction, reforming and opening up, introducing foreign capital and so on. Therefore, some researchers take this opportunity to reflect on and interpret history, and think that in recent years, China 100 years, western powers have been dumping goods, investing in factories, exploiting roads and plundering raw agricultural products in China to help China realize modernization, and they should be welcomed in, not resisted.
There are more than one reason for this statement, but one of them is to confuse history with reality and confuse modernization and opening up in reality with foreign invasions in modern history. The so-called "opening to the outside world" in modern history, foreigners investing and setting up factories in China and so on. , can't be confused with the current reform and opening up and the introduction of foreign capital, must be treated historically. China's modern society was a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. Through the war of aggression against China, western powers forced the Qing government to sign a series of unequal treaties, gained many privileges in China, such as politics, military, economy, diplomacy and culture, controlled China's financial and economic lifeline and manipulated China's political and military power. At present, the historical background of socialist modernization, opening to the outside world and introducing foreign capital is that China's * * * production party led China people to overthrow three mountains, end the history of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, establish a new China, and carry out socialist transformation and construction for decades. Today, China's opening to the outside world and the introduction of foreign capital are independent, and foreign countries are not allowed to attach any conditions. Foreigners engaged in business and investment activities in China must abide by the laws of China. Compared with semi-colonial and semi-feudal modern China, Socialism with Chinese characteristics society is fundamentally different in social nature, and it is impossible to treat history and reality equally with the status quo and concepts.
For another example, we now say that peaceful development is two major themes in today's world; In China, economic construction is the center, emphasizing stability and unity, so some researchers use it to explain history and determine why the ancient society in China developed slowly and could not move toward modernization because the peasant war destroyed stability and economy. Modern China did not realize modernization, which was the result of the revolution. The revolution is so bad that only improvement can modernize China. It is self-evident why peasant uprisings and revolutions occurred in history, and whether they were just destruction. Without prejudice, it is not difficult to answer them fairly. It is not a Marxist view of history to standardize history with reality and demand historical figures with modern people's thoughts. Studying history requires observing problems from a historical perspective. "When analyzing any social problem, the absolute requirement of Marxist theory is to mention the problem within a certain historical range" [4].
Fourth, we should attach importance to history education.
History education includes history education in schools and education for the broad masses of people and cadres outside schools, which is indispensable for improving the ideological and cultural quality of the whole nation. Comrade Deng Xiaoping emphasized: "We should use history to educate the youth and people" [5].
If history wants to play a role in improving the national ideology and cultural quality, it cannot be limited to specialized academic research. Of course, historical research is very important to improve the academic level of the discipline and develop historical science, but it is not enough to just do the work of improvement. We should also attach importance to history education and do a good job in popularization. The improvement and popularization of historical work is a two-handed problem, and both hands should be grasped and both hands should be hard. The problem now is that it is hard to improve. Historians pay attention to writing academic monographs and publishing academic papers. And it has something to do with evaluating professional titles, improving one's status and so on. Popularization is ignored, regarded as pediatrics, not learning, and evaluation of professional titles is not counted. This ideological concept and practical problems have influenced historians' attention to popularization and weakened history education.
In terms of knowledge popularization, scientific and technological personnel have done a good job, and published many popular science books and movies, and the actual effect is also very good. In contrast, historians have not done enough. In terms of discipline requirements, historians should also attach importance to the popularization and education of history, and knowledge should not only stay in the circle of experts. Needless to say, ordinary teenagers don't read our historical works, and even cadres don't have much contact. Because these books and papers are too professional and difficult to understand, people don't understand and are not interested. If a subject or a science leaves the masses and society, I am afraid it will be difficult to survive.
In fact, it is not that the masses and cadres don't like history and don't need it, but that they lack suitable reading materials or films. Film and television workers attach great importance to the historical popularization neglected by historians. They made up many historical movies and TV series, including plays and jokes, which attracted many audiences. However, these historical films and TV plays have a serious problem of fabricating history at will, which not only distorts the historical knowledge for the audience, but more importantly gives the audience a wrong view of history and values. This is very harmful and should attract the attention of historians.
It is noteworthy that young people's knowledge of history is weak. According to the survey of teenagers 14 ~ 28 years old 1065 in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan and Shenzhen in February, 2000, there are 25 history questions, each with 4 points, with an average score of 27.69, and the passing rate is only 1.5%. One of the questions is "Who burned the Yuanmingyuan in China in 1860". Only 3 1.8% of the people answered that it was the British-French coalition, and most people answered that it was Eight-Nation Alliance. In middle school history teaching, there are obvious scientific problems in some outlines, such as not writing about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but attributing the foreign gun team of the Taiping Army to the anti-aggression struggle; At the beginning of modernization, there was the Westernization Movement, but there were no national capital enterprises, and so on. History education is weak or even misleading, and the consequences are worrying. Historians have the responsibility to strengthen the general education of history.