Editing Chinese historiography (section)

===Marxism===
{{Main|Marxist historiography}}
Most Chinese history that is published in the People's Republic of China is based on a [[Marxist historiography|Marxist interpretation of history]]. These theories were first applied in the 1920s by Chinese scholars such as [[Guo Moruo]], and became orthodoxy in academic study after 1949. The Marxist view of history is that history is governed by universal laws and that according to these laws, a society moves through a series of stages, with the transition between stages being driven by class struggle.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dirlik |first1=Arif |title=The universalisation of a concept: 'feudalism' to 'feudalism' in Chinese Marxist historiography |journal=The Journal of Peasant Studies |date=January 1985 |volume=12 |issue=2–3 |pages=197–227 |doi=10.1080/03066158508438268 }}</ref> These stages are:
* [[Slavery|Slave society]]
* [[Feudalism|Feudal society]]
* [[Capitalist society]]
* [[Socialism|Socialist society]]
* The world [[communist society]]

The official historical view within the People's Republic of China associates each of these stages with a particular era in Chinese history.
* Slave society – [[Xia dynasty|Xia]] to [[Zhou dynasty|Zhou]]
* Feudal society (decentralized) – [[Qin dynasty|Qin]] to [[Sui dynasty|Sui]]
* Feudal society (bureaucratic) – [[Tang dynasty|Tang]] to the [[First Opium War]]
* Feudal society (semi-colonial) – First Opium War to end of [[Qing dynasty]]
* Semi-feudal and Semi-capitalist society – [[History of the Republic of China|Republican era]]
* Socialist society – [[People's Republic of China|PRC]] 1949 to present

Because of the strength of the CCP and the importance of the Marxist interpretation of history in legitimizing its rule, it was for many years difficult for historians within the PRC to actively argue in favor of non-Marxist and anti-Marxist interpretations of history. However, this political restriction is less confining than it may first appear in that the Marxist historical framework is surprisingly flexible, and it is a rather simple matter to modify an alternative historical theory to use language that at least does not challenge the Marxist interpretation of history.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Feuerwerker |first1=Albert |title=China's History in Marxian Dress |journal=The American Historical Review |date=1961 |volume=66 |issue=2 |pages=323–353 |doi=10.2307/1844030 |jstor=1844030 }}</ref>

Partly because of the interest of [[Mao Zedong]], historians in the 1950s took a special interest in the role of [[list of rebellions in China|peasant rebellions]] in Chinese history and compiled documentary histories to examine them.<ref>James P. Harrison. ''The Communists and Chinese Peasant Rebellions; a Study in the Rewriting of Chinese History''. New York: Atheneum, 1969.{{pn|date=May 2024}}</ref>

There are several problems associated with imposing Marx's European-based framework on Chinese history. First, slavery existed throughout China's history but never as the primary form of labor. While the Zhou and earlier dynasties may be labeled as [[feudalism|feudal]], later dynasties were much more centralized than how Marx analyzed their European counterparts as being. To account for the discrepancy, Chinese Marxists invented the term<!--pov?--> "bureaucratic feudalism". The placement of the Tang as the beginning of the bureaucratic phase rests largely on the replacement of [[nine-rank system|patronage networks]] with the [[imperial examination]]. Some [[World systems theory|world-systems analysts]], such as [[Janet Abu-Lughod]], claim that analysis of [[Kondratiev waves]] shows that capitalism first arose in Song dynasty China, although widespread trade was subsequently disrupted and then curtailed.

The Japanese scholar [[Tanigawa Michio]], writing in the 1970s and 1980s, set out to revise the generally Marxist views of China prevalent in [[Post-occupation Japan|post-war Japan]]. Tanigawa writes that historians in Japan fell into two schools. One held that China followed the set European pattern which Marxists thought to be universal; that is, from ancient slavery to medieval feudalism to modern capitalism; while another group argued that "[[Chinese culture|Chinese society]] was extraordinarily saturated with stagnancy, as compared to the West" and assumed that China existed in a "qualitatively different historical world from [[Western world|Western society]]". That is, there is an argument between those who see "unilinear, monistic world history" and those who conceive of a "two-tracked or multi-tracked world history". Tanigawa reviewed the applications of these theories in Japanese writings about Chinese history and then tested them by analyzing the [[Six Dynasties]] 220–589 CE period, which Marxist historians saw as feudal. His conclusion was that China did not have feudalism in the sense that Marxists use, that Chinese military governments did not lead to a European-style military aristocracy. The period established social and political patterns which shaped China's history from that point on.{{sfnb|Tanigawa|1985| p = [http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft1k4003vg&chunk.id=d0e823&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e815&brand=ucpress 3]}}

There was a gradual relaxation of Marxist interpretation after the [[Death and state funeral of Mao Zedong|death of Mao Zedong]] in 1976,<ref>{{cite journal|author-link1=Kwang-Ching Liu |last=Liu |first=Kwang-Ching |title=World View and Peasant Rebellion: Reflections on Post-Mao Historiography |date=February 1981 |journal=[[The Journal of Asian Studies]] |volume=40 |pages=295–326 |number=2 |doi=10.2307/2054866 |jstor=2054866 |s2cid=146288705 }}</ref> which was accelerated after the [[Tiananmen Square protest of 1989|Tian'anmen Square protest]] and [[Revolutions of 1989|other revolutions]] in 1989, which damaged Marxism's ideological legitimacy in the eyes of Chinese academics.