The struggle for memory: Jian Bozan on historical materialism

Abstract

This paper offers a first analysis of the philosophy of history developed by Jian Bozan (1898–1968), the author of China's earliest comprehensive exposition of historical materialism. Despite his central importance for the establishment of professional historical studies in PRC, the existing studies neglect Jian's original contribution to the development of Chinese Marxism and his pre-war works in general, focusing solely on his participation in the debate over the relation between history and theory in the 1960s. The paper seeks to fill this lacuna by providing a critical account of Jian Bozan's understanding of historical laws, progress, the stages of history, human freedom and the class struggle. Jian's synthesis of historicism and historical materialism, which at a time was seen as an alternative to the Maoist view of history, was officially condemned during the Cultural Revolution and led to his premature death. However, this paper demonstrates that, following the public rehabilitation of the thought of Jian Bozan in 1978, it was his system that had an important impact on the historiography in Dengist China. Furthermore, the paper argues that Jian's approach to historical materialism brought many novelties in relation to the preceding Sino-Marxist views of history.

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“…It can be emphasized that there are a number of fundamental studies of understanding the philosophical and historical issues in Soviet and Chinese Marxism -Flora Gu and Kineta Hung (Gu & Hung, 2009), Jianwu Guo, (Guo, 1997), Dawid Rogacz (Rogacz, 2022), Chengbing Wang and Michael Peters (Wang & Peters, 2021) and Gustav Wetter (Wetter, 1958). The methodological basis of the study was research conducted in the framework of reception studies, as well as comparative philosophy.…”

“…He stresses that in contradistinction to the metaphysical equating of the laws of history with absolute, immutable principles, historical materialism understands them as "abstracted, synthesized, and examined practice" (bei chouxianglede, bei zonghelede, bei sikaolede shijian 被抽象了的、被综合了的、被思考了的实践). On the contrary, Jian claims no less firmly that: a) first, all these laws are necessary and only brought into effect in a contingent way (the point frequently stressed by Lenin, to whom Jian refers, and with regards to their necessity, even more by Stalin); b) second, all these laws are general (yibande 一般的), which means that they have to be applicable to all the stages of historical development (Rogacz, 2022). Accordingly, Chinese Marxism is characterized by the fact that the initial, deepest nomological characteristic of the historical process is a necessity because all historical reality is considered here, after all, not as chaotic, but as such that its nature is determined by a comprehensive network of objective, essential and universal relationships and interdependencies.…”

“…Importantly, Jian justifies this model with reference to Chinese history, but then notes that "it has to be pointed out that historical development as such does not adopt the cyclical trajectory (…), but eternally follows the spiral pattern that never returns to its point of departure." Surprisingly, Jian does not refer to Lenin's idea of "a development, so to speak, that proceeds in spirals, not in a straight line; a development by leaps, catastrophes, and revolutions" (Rogacz, 2022).…”

“…Naturally, he referred to Mao's On Contradiction in a similar discussion from his essay On how to investigate Chinese history of 1950, but even then, that went against the fact that Mao never agreed with the law of double negation. Interestingly, the relative absence of the quotes from Chairman Mao in Jian's later works also applies to the points and ideas they shared, such as the spiral scheme of history (Rogacz, 2022).…”

“…The statement that historical specificities are "quite often" subordinated to general laws also suggests that there are some particularities that are beyond the reach of laws, which seriously questions the generality of the latter. This key inconsistency, already visible in Jian's view on the task of the philosophy of history, will also influence other parts of his thought, including his later answer to the challenge of historicism" (Rogacz, 2022).…”