Pictured here is a scene of the Taiping Rebellion. Different narratives of this event focus on different historical aspects.

 

In Chinese academia, it is undisputed that the “materialist conception of history” plays a guiding role in historical research. However, some prevalent historical narratives, including history of elites, events, civilizations and modernization, have failed to truly capture the essence of the materialist conception of history, while some Western historical theories have silently gained currency within public discourse.
 

The failure of these narratives to conform to the materialist conception of history is attributed to the doubt that the law of history can be defined directly based on historical facts. And this is because such a practice is unworkable in traditional cognition.
 

Consequently, the two propositions of “man as the writer of the historical play” and “man as an actor in the historical play” have never achieved dialectical unity in its true sense. Though they agree with the proposition of “man as the writer of the historical play,” writers of these narratives find it difficult to submit to the theoretical guidance of the materialist conception of history.
 

In fact, the law of history does not directly exercise restraints upon historical facts. As history advances in a spiral way, the law of history runs through the intervals of real historical development in linear logic while indirectly playing the restrictive role. Thus, at the instant of history, it is human beings who create historical activities, and there is no law of history.
 

The Marxist historical narrative conforms to the idea of “man as the writer of the historical play.” In fact, some narratives in line with this idea are also included in the scope of interpretation of the materialist conception of history.
 

For instance, the materialist conception of history does not oppose the “great man” narrative but opposes a conception of history that is determined solely by great men. The former is one of many approaches to express history, while the latter concerns the understanding of the nature of history.
 

The masses are the makers of history, but they cannot replace the unique role of heroes in the evolution of history. Heroes or typical historical figures are the concentrated expression of the appearance and presence of the masses.

The materialist conception of history emphasizes the law of history to illustrate that the evolution of human history is neither blind nor is it a process that can be randomly controlled by the will of one person. It offers insight into the objective logic of historical development behind historical facts. More importantly, its theories point to an outlook of historical progress. There is dialectical unity between the truth and value of the conception, which contemporary Western historical theories lack.
 

By contrast, many narratives only look at historical facts themselves. As a result, conclusions are drawn on the basis of partial understanding. From an overall perspective, however, such judgments can be full of errors, and scholars that follow these narratives easily fall into the trap of historical nihilism.   
 

Take the Taiping Rebellion (1851-64) as an example. The modernization narrative focuses on its damage to the economy of southern China. The cultural narrative focuses on its destruction of traditional culture. The narrative of a single historical event depicts the narrow-mindedness bred by the small-scale peasant economy. Seemingly, there’s nothing wrong with these judgments made based on facts, but these conclusions have limitations if the situation is viewed from a broad perspective.

To conclude, the materialist conception of history plays a decisive role in evaluating various historical narratives. In this sense, the leading position of the conception in historical studies cannot be shaken.

 

Gong Peihe is from the School of Marxism at the Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology.