奴隶社会之辩——重审中国奴隶社会阶段论争

A Debate on Slave Society:Revisiting the Debate on the Stages of Slave Society in China

中国奴隶社会阶段论争的基本问题包括:什么是奴隶社会;马克思是否将奴隶社会列为"五种社会形态"之一;奴隶社会是否为人类历史普遍经历的阶段;中国是否存在过奴隶社会阶段;中国哪一阶段属于奴隶社会。殷商奴隶社会说是奴隶社会论争的焦点,它有两大支柱:殷墟发掘所见人殉、人牲为奴隶;传世文献与出土文献所见"众"、"民"系奴隶。学界曾围绕这两大支柱展开反复论辩,近年出现的新材料有助于问题的进一步解决。中国奴隶社会阶段的研究主要基于考古学、人类学、文献、思想史等视角,上述视角有待整合。探索中国古代社会形态的特征及生成背景,需着眼于中国文明发生及早期发展的特殊进程,从世界文明的视野出发就"中国路径"作更为综合的考察。

The basic questions in the debate on the stages of Chinese slave society include the following:What is slave society?Did Marx regard slave society as one of the'five social formations'?Did slave society exist everywhere in human history?Did slave society exist as a social stage in China?Which Chinese historical period was a slave society?The theory that the Shang dynasty was a slave society is the focus of the debate.The theory has two pillars:that the human sacrifices excavated from the Yin Ruins were slaves,and that the terms zhong(众)and min(民)in the literature handed down and the unearthed documents designated slaves.Scholars have focused on these two pillars in multiple debates.In recent years,new materials have emerged which will help answer the questions.Studies of slave society in China are based on archeological,anthropological,philological,intellectual history and other perspectives;these need to be integrated.To explore the characteristics of the form of ancient Chinese society and its background,we need to focus on the particular process of its occurrence and the early development of Chinese civilization,and undertake a more comprehensive study of the'Chinese path'from the perspective of world civilization.