Some time ago, the education department of Shandong Province notified that elementary and secondary school libraries should remove Yi Zhongtian’s books, and later Zhejiang Province followed suit. When this news came out, I was very surprised. Why? Because Yi Zhongtian is a scholar who studies ancient history. He became famous for participating in CCTV’s “Hundred Schools Forum” and lecturing on “Yi Zhongtian’s Comments on the Three Kingdoms”. Later, he also lectured on “Yi Zhongtian’s Comments on Figures of the Han Dynasty” and “The Contention of the Hundred Schools of Thought in the Pre-Qin Period”, mainly involving the field of ancient history. We all know that ancient times are far away from the present, and the further away, the fewer taboos, and the more freedom relatively. So I thought it was strange that there could be problems with lecturing on ancient history.
So, I asked some friends in China, and they found that Xinhua Bookstore also received a notice that Yi Zhongtian’s books had to be removed. It seems that Yi Zhongtian’s matter is not limited to elementary and secondary schools, but the entire Yi Zhongtian’s works are facing the danger of being completely removed from the mainland. I also asked some friends in the publishing industry why Yi Zhongtian’s books were removed. They said there were two reasons: The first is that the content is vulgar. Yi Zhongtian’s recommended catalog for elementary and secondary schools mainly includes a book called “Stories of Chinese Classics”, which talks about ancient classics such as “Analects” and “Zhuangzi”. In order to make it easier for elementary and secondary school students to read, some illustrations were added, but it was said that these illustrations were vulgar. For example, when talking about Liu Bang, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, it was written, “I can’t do anything, I can only pick up girls, so I became the founding emperor”, and when soaking my feet, he said, “This girl is not bad.” He interprets ancient people in the way of modern people, which is considered vulgar content. The second reason is that he is considered a historical nihilist.
I specifically looked at the articles in “Stories of Chinese Classics” and did find some content. For example, he talked about freedom in Zhuangzi, which has some connection with modern liberalism, and lashed out at some of the authoritarian thinking in Chinese history. That’s all. Of course, he also talked about Adam and Eve. If this is considered historical nihilism, then the boundaries of historical nihilism have expanded.
Many people may not know what historical nihilism is. What exactly does historical nihilism negate? Why is the Communist Party so afraid of historical nihilism? Last year, a professor from Fudan University named Ge Jianxiong gave a lecture at a university titled “How Should We Treat History”. He gave two definitions of historical nihilism: The first is to deny national history and national culture. For example, China talks about “five thousand years of history of Xia, Shang, and Zhou”. If you say that there are only 3,700 years, and that Xia does not exist, this is called historical nihilism. For example, other countries have basically figured it out based on molecular biology that humans came out of Africa 50,000 or 100,000 years ago, but you see that many historical museums in China are still talking about Peking Man and the cavemen. In fact, Peking Man and the current Chinese people have nothing to do with each other in terms of blood relationship, but you see that they are still talking about it. Why? This is to talk about the origin of national history, which can be traced back to Peking Man. If you deny this, this is called denying national history and national culture.
The second definition is to oppose the Communist Party of China through history. This is a bit interesting. How can you oppose the Communist Party of China through history? The opposite of historical nihilism is actually historical materialism. Everyone knows that historical materialism is one of the three major theoretical cornerstones of Marxism. Historical materialism is Marx’s material determines consciousness, productive forces determine production relations, superstructure and material base, the application of these three relationships in the field of history. Marx believes that human history does not depend on human will. It starts with primitive society, goes through slave society, feudal society, capitalist society, and then to communist society. If this process cannot be automatically realized, it must be achieved through violent revolution. The working class unites to eliminate the capitalists and finally realize communism and liberate all mankind.
After this historical materialism was introduced to China, some historical theory experts of the Communist Party of China, such as Guo Moruo, Fan Wenlan, and Jian Bozan, sinicized Marx’s historical materialism theory. In this process of sinicization, the Opium War of 1840 was considered the beginning of modern Chinese history. Britain came to China with ships and fought a battle, and signed the Treaty of Nanking. Since then, China has gradually become a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. In this process, from the Opium Smoke at Humen, the Jintian Uprising, the Hundred Days’ Reform, the Treaty of Shimonoseki to the Boxer Rebellion, the Xinhai Revolution, these processes of the peasant class and the bourgeoisie opposing feudal society and foreign imperialist powers, due to their own limitations, all failed. Because there was no Communist Party of China at that time. If there was a Communist Party of China, the Jintian Uprising would have succeeded.
Later, the October Revolution sounded the cannon, bringing Marxism to China. In 1921, the Communist Party of China was established, and since then, the Chinese revolution has moved from victory to victory, from one victory to another. The eight-year War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression was led by the Communist Party of China. The Kuomintang’s frontal battlefield did not resist, and it was all done by us in Yan’an. In the end, the Kuomintang was defeated in the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party because it lost its leadership, and history chose the Communist Party of China. This is the historical materialism narrative logic of the entire modern Chinese history. Did you see it? In this historical materialism narrative logic, Ge Jianxiong said that removing any link will deny the final conclusion.
Ge Jianxiong’s theory is that there has never been history in Chinese history, but rather the legitimacy of the rule has been discussed. For example, the Qing Dynasty, when the Qing army entered Beijing, as a minority ethnic group that ruled the Central Plains, needed to discuss its legitimacy. How did it discuss it? When discussing the legitimacy of the dynasty in Chinese history, it was always the “Mandate of Heaven”. The past dynasty was no longer good, the rule was corrupt and extravagant, and the Mandate of Heaven was transferred to the new dynasty, and the new dynasty eliminated the old dynasty. But the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Chongzhen, was very diligent, and his working hours were more diligent than Premier Zhou Enlai, so the Qing Dynasty had no way to use this narrative.
Later, the Qing Dynasty constructed another set of theories. The Ming Dynasty was destroyed by Li Zicheng, and then the Qing Dynasty seized the world from Li Zicheng and avenged the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, the Qing Dynasty built the Thirteen Tombs very well and also gave Emperor Chongzhen a grand burial. Of course, it was not a particularly grand burial, but it was still buried according to the emperor’s etiquette. That is to say, it constructed its own legitimacy narrative. In fact, it’s all fake. If you really want to avenge the Ming Dynasty, there was still the Southern Ming Dynasty at that time, why didn’t you negotiate with the Southern Ming Dynasty and help the Southern Ming Dynasty return to Beijing? So these are all fake, just an excuse.
Ge Jianxiong’s view is that the history of the dynasties in Chinese history has always been to discuss the legitimacy of the rule, and it is the same now. The most important function of modern Chinese history is to discuss the legitimacy of the Communist Party of China’s seizure of power. He said in an interview that he just broke a layer of window paper, and everyone doesn’t need to be surprised. Therefore, in modern Chinese history, these histories have never been history, but politics. If you accidentally re-evaluate something, it is not a historical issue, but a political issue.
The term historical nihilism appeared in 1989 because a very important event occurred – the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The disintegration of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe brought a problem: historical determinism and historical materialism were falsified in real society. Marxism believes that communism will be realized, although it has not yet been realized, but it will be realized in the future. But the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe collapsed, does this historical materialism still exist? Impossible, it has been falsified. A very important prerequisite for faith to become faith is that it cannot be falsified. If the existence of God can be falsified, this matter cannot become a faith. The reason why communism is a faith is that it cannot be falsified. Once falsified, communism cannot become a faith.
The disintegration of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe posed a major challenge to historical materialism. After it was spread to China, the Communist Party of China woke up and had to discuss why the Soviet Union collapsed. It was found that there were two important factors: First, Khrushchev denied Stalin, which led to the denial of the legitimacy of the entire Soviet Union’s rule; Second, after Gorbachev came to power, he implemented “New Thinking”, and many historical heroes were proven to be fictitious by historians, which led to the loss of legitimacy of the Soviet Union’s rule. Since then, the CCP has begun to oppose historical nihilism, and it is not allowed to move or question the CCP’s narrative of modern history.
There are several public cases, such as Yuan Weishi’s article published in “Bingdian Magazine”, which analyzed the reasons for the Anglo-French forces’ attack on Beijing and revealed the responsibility of the Qing government, which caused a sensation. The article talks about two contents: First, the reasons for the Anglo-French forces’ attack on Beijing, in fact, the Qing government deliberately let the Anglo-French forces go around, and attacked them on the way, leading to conflict. Second, the evaluation of the Boxer Rebellion, Yuan Weishi believes that the Boxers were mobs, not a progressive force. These were regarded as manifestations of historical nihilism and were criticized.
The TV series “Towards the Republic” sparked controversy because it reshaped the images of Empress Dowager Cixi and Yuan Shikai. If Cixi and Yuan Shikai were not bad, Sun Yat-sen would have no reason to carry out the revolution, and the Communist Party’s revolution would have even less reason. Historical nihilism negates the legitimacy of the Communist Party’s revolution and rule, such as the image of Mao Zedong. Li Zhisui, Mao Zedong’s personal doctor, wrote a book describing Mao Zedong as a demon and a gangster, and this book was banned in China because Mao Zedong’s image involved the legitimacy of the Communist Party’s ruling.
Therefore, historical nihilism is a major challenge for the CCP. Although historical nihilism is now opposed, the events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have been falsified. The CCP is now promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, not communism. The theory has also shifted from revolutionary narrative to ruling narrative. The biggest difference between modern regimes and traditional societies lies in the legitimacy of the rule. The legitimacy of modern society comes from the votes of citizens and does not need to fabricate history. However, Chinese society is still a traditional society and needs to discuss the legitimacy of the rule.
Therefore, to make history an academic field without taboos, Chinese society must shift from tradition to modernity, from the historical logic of discussing the legitimacy of the rule to the citizen voting to prove the legitimacy of the rule.
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