Marx's theory of social formation - Duan Zhongqiao

This is the first book written by a Chinese scholar living in China but published in the West, to approach Marxs historical materialism, which offers many ideas differing not only from the interpretation of major western scholars, such as GA Cohen, Louis Althusser, Umber Melotti, but also from the standard interpretation in China in this area. The author holds that the kernel of historical materialism concerns two questions: the structure of society and the stages of the development of society. By reconstructing Marxs theory of the social formation, he united Marxs expositions regarding these two questions and makes them form an integrated theory. He also offers a fundamental reinterpretation of some important concepts of historical materialism through historical and logical analyses of the expositions given by Marx himself, such as that human beings are not only carriers of social relations but also their subjects and that the development of human society appears as the successive replacement of three great social formations i.e. pre-capitalism, capitalism and communism. In conclusion, the author applies Marxs theory of the social formation to the tremendous social changes which have happened in Eastern Europe, the former USSR and China, and argues that these social changes do not make these countries further from the socialism described by Marx, but has allowed them to come closer to it.