Qin Hui: Teaching Ze and Enlightenment: Remembering the Professor. This article was published on Tencent.

Qin Hui, a professor of history at Tsinghua University.

Zhao Lisheng (19 17-2007), a native of Anqiu, Shandong Province, is a famous contemporary historian.

My tutor, Mr Zhao Lisheng, passed away.

Looking back 1978, we were the first batch of graduate students who entered the school after the "Cultural Revolution", although we were all people who insisted on studying in turbulent times. After all, we have just experienced a "cultural fault" and are not familiar with traditional terms. A senior brother wrote "Zhao Lisheng, a former teacher" in his article. He probably thought that "former teacher" was a more respectful name similar to "sir". As a result, Mr. Zhao looked at it and smiled: "I am still alive and well. How can I become a' teacher'? "

Photo courtesy of Zhao Lisheng in his later years

Today, people are buzzing and philosophers have passed away. Teacher Zhao has gone through his bumpy and legendary 9 1 Spring and Autumn Period and has truly become our mentor and friend.

Mr. Wang is very kind to me 1966 when I was in middle school, I dropped out of school during the cultural revolution, and then there was a "war" in Guangxi, which was the worst in the country-in fact, it was a civil war with bullets. As soon as the war ended, I graduated from junior high school and jumped the queue in the countryside before I was 16 years old. After that, he worked in Waseda University for more than 9 years until 1978 became a graduate student of Teacher Zhao. Therefore, except for the six-year primary school before the Cultural Revolution, my real career in Xingtan was under Mr. Zhao. Although I did well in the exam that year, I was born in Waseda University. In particular, my physical examination form of "congenital glaucoma, blindness in the right eye, optic atrophy in the left eye, naked vision of 0.2, corrected vision of only 0.7" was impressive. So I later heard that there was considerable resistance to accepting me. It was Miss Zhao who pushed through the crowd that I was able to enter the school gate. It is said that my husband once said at that time: If you don't recruit Qin Hui, you won't recruit anyone. He also said: Even if Qin Gui is blind, he can be another Chen Yinque.

Young Zhao Lisheng.

Nearly 30 years have passed, and I am not blind. I am ashamed that I didn't become "Chen Yinque". But Mr. Zhao's kindness to me at the meeting is very different from that of ordinary teachers and students. The road of life depends on efforts and opportunities. I think the greatest opportunity in life is to learn from Teacher Zhao. It was he who brought me into the academic hall, and the peasant problem I have studied so far also originated from Yu Xiansheng's "pioneering" in The History of Land System and Peasant War. If I hadn't met Mr. Zhao, my life path would probably be completely different.

But as a scholar, Mr. Zhao gave me more than just "opportunities". Mr. Wang's knowledge is profound and profound, and his enlightenment to me is immeasurable. Although my husband and I are two generations, the fields of knowledge cannot overlap, the "problem consciousness" given to us by the times cannot be the same, the learning path cannot be the same, and even the views on many issues are different, but even in those "different" places, there are inspirations from my husband. Looking back on these thoughts at the moment of remembering Mr. Wang is the best commemoration for Mr. Wang. Teacher Zhao is an independent thinker himself, and he asks us to do the same. Therefore, I believe that Teacher Wang will be very happy to see me write this passage in the spirit of heaven.

1 About "Asian mode of production"

Zhao Lisheng's Collected Works, Lanzhou University Press, 2004.

Mr. Zhao was labeled as "Rightist" in 1958, so he almost died in Jiabiangou. But before 1949, he was a typical leftist scholar. He not only participated in the "December 29th Movement" and the Shanxi New Army led by Zhong * * * and served as the camp instructor, but also took leftist thoughts, especially Marxism, as the main ideological resources for his academic research after "disarming". Mr. Wang said that he "disliked Li Zhixue" and attached importance to macro research and theoretical analysis. Although many "theorists" later refused to recognize Mr. Zhao because he was purged, he was one of the greatest contributors in the new Marxist historical system formed around 1949. Another historian, Mr. Xiang Da, who was labeled as "Rightist" at the same time, once sarcastically called the new historiography at that time "five golden flowers", which mainly discussed five major issues: ancient history staging, peasant war, land system, ethnic relations and ethnic integration, and capitalist germination. Among them, Mr. Zhao's contribution is the greatest. He has a recognized contribution to the history of peasant war and established his own research system on the history of land system. Thirdly, the theory of ancient history staging and social nature is also one of the important scholars of Wei-Jin feudal school. However, Mr. Zhao's fame lies not in his concrete demonstration of feudalism in Wei and Jin Dynasties, but in his theoretical basis, that is, Marx's interpretation and development of "ancient East" and "Asian mode of production".

The theory of "Asian countries" is "selfless, but' authoritarian' and enslaved"

Marx's theory of "Asian countries" is closely related to the concept of "isomorphism" 19th century, the ancient or "traditional" society is characterized by the "entirety" of identity, compulsion and dependence, while modernization means the awakening of individuality and individual rights and the contractual combination of free people, which is the same view of various "progressive" thoughts since the Enlightenment. Rousseau, Hegel, Mayne, Muller, Tonnis, Durkheim and even Marx, Loughger, Kaucki and plekhanov all thought so. Marx thought: "The more we trace back to history, the less independent individuals are, and the more subordinate they are to a larger whole." The evolution process of these "whole" is: at first it is a completely natural family, then it expands from family to clan, and then it forms various larger * * * bodies by the conflict and integration between clans. In other words, "natural isomorphism" includes: "extending from family to tribe", and then "alliance of tribes". From these "naturally formed" organizations, they are regrouped into "an aggregate unity above all small entities", that is, "Asian countries". In these "* * * same body" or "one body" which suppresses individuality, the individual is only "the appendage of narrow people" and the individual itself is "the property of * * * same body". The attachment of all individuals to the same body produces the attachment of the same body member to the "father of the same body". And this is the source of "Asian autocracy".

In the case of limited empirical data at that time, the above viewpoints were actually logically derived from the pursuit of freedom by those scholars. The so-called "Asian countries" is such a concept, which is not so much a factual judgment as a value judgment. The "Asia" that Marx said at that time had the following basic characteristics: it was the first stage of social development; At that time, there was no private ownership, only "state-owned land" and "rural commune", on which harsh absolutism and "universal slavery" were established.

The conflict between "Asian way" and later "five social forms"

However, when this description comes to the later theory of "five social forms", it faces serious difficulties in explanation. According to Stalin's understanding, "authoritarian state" and "slavery" are only the products of "private ownership". However, the state of "no self" or "commune" is painted with the rose color of "equality": it is either the ideal materialism in the future or the primitive society in the initial state of human beings, while the latter seems to be morally beautiful except for material poverty and low productivity: it is a kind of "classless" and "classless". Marx's Asia, on the other hand, links selflessness, identity and commune with the terrible autocratic state and universal slavery. Where did this go in the "five forms"? It is called "primitive society" full of exploitation and oppression, and "slave society" without "private ownership". Marx clearly put it in the initial position, not the second stage after "primitive society".

Therefore, the theory of "two types" and "two stages" was debated for a long time in the late Soviet Union. The former thinks that "Asia" is only a special social type in the "water-irrigated" areas of the East, and it is not suitable for non-water-irrigated areas such as Europe. The latter admitted that the Asiatic way not only existed in Asia, but also said that it was a transitional stage between primitive society and slave society. Selflessness is the original feature, and autocracy is the feature of slave society, so it should look like "early slavery" or "underdeveloped slavery", just like "typical slavery" or "developed slavery" later. However, these two statements have many defects in argument and logic.

In the Russian era, early Marxists criticized reality with the theory of "Asian autocracy"

And more importantly, the statement that there is "autocracy" and slavery without "private ownership" is easy to cause realistic associations. In fact, when plekhanov's generation of Marxists opposed autocracy in Russia, they did use this statement to attack the "commune state" of the czar's autocracy at that time. They rebuked the tsar for "forcing peasants to plow their fields with bayonets and whips", pointed out that "Russian peasants are divided into two classes: exploiters' communes and exploited individuals", and shouted that "rural communes are increasingly harmful to peasants" and even supported independence. They also criticized the populists' thoughts of beautifying rural communes and resisting capitalism for the sake of "Asian autocracy", reactionary "police populism" and pursuing "imperial autocracy based on ancient China or Peruvian capitalism". At that time, the theory of "Asian autocracy" not only played such a role in reality, but also did not conflict with the official model of "five forms" that did not exist at that time, so it once became a sharp weapon in the hands of anti-authoritarian Marxists. From plekhanov and early Lenin to Pokrovski, the founder of Russian Marxist historiography, they all learned this way.

In the Soviet era, the discussion about "Asia" became a sensitive topic.

However, when the situation changed greatly in the Soviet era, the Bolsheviks established a more severe "commune state" and established the "five forms" of official historiography. Private ownership is judged as the only source of "exploitation and oppression", and freedom from society has become a great rebellion. The crime of populism has also changed from defending "authoritarian commune" to advocating "freedom of small farmers" Therefore, the discussion about the "Asian way" has become very sensitive and even dangerous. During the Soviet period, there were many prisons for this reason, and many people lost their heads.

In the social and historical debates in China and the Republic of China, the theory of "Asian Road" was judged as "Trotsky Theory", and many people were unlucky for it after 1949. In addition, unlike Russians who identify with Europe, China people in East Asia and Asia tend to have another aversion to the derogatory "Asian way" theory: besides Trotsky's heresy, this theory seems to be suspected of "colonial western prejudice" (although "Asia" is a universal concept in Marx's eyes, not specifically Asia). Therefore, in China, the theory of "Asian way" has been an academic forbidden area for a long time, and it was not until 1990 that "great criticism" appeared on it.