郭沫若的铁器研究与先秦社会形态研究体系的建立与发展

Guo Moruo’s Research on Iron and the Establishment and Development of the Research System of Pre⁃Qin Social Formations

随着唯物史观的传播,马克思主义社会形态理论被引入中国古史研究领域。其中,郭沫若发挥了“旗手”作用。由于受到摩尔根和恩格斯的影响,他将铁器的发展水平与中国古代社会的变迁看得异常紧密。于是,他致力寻找中国历史上的铁。通过从文献学、古器物学及社会经济史层面的探索,他以现代金石学家章鸿钊的《石雅》作为重要参考,形成了对中国古代铁器沿革史的系统认知,进而视铁器工艺水平为主要衡量标尺,考订古代社会的经济发展程度,划分中国先秦时期的社会形态。尽管后起的马克思主义史学家的社会形态研究学说各有千秋,但大多深受郭沫若社会研究模式的影响。要之,郭沫若将唯物史观在中国的运用推向新高度,开创了以经济史与社会形态相链接的新范式,促进了中国马克思主义史学的崛起。但同时,他太过倚重以“铁”来判研生产力水平,容易错估甚至掉入“生产工具决定论”的泥沼,成为其他史家诟病与攻击的“要害”因素之一。

With the spread of historical materialism,Marxist theory of social formation has been introduced into the research area of ancient history in China.Guo Moruo(郭沫若)is the standard bearer in it.Influenced by Morgan and Engles,he associated closely the development level of iron tools with the changes of ancient society in China.Therefore,he devoted himself to finding the iron in the history of China.Through his exploration in philology,ancient artifacts and socio⁃economic history,he took Shi Ya(《石雅》)by a modern epigrapher Zhang Hongzhao(章鸿钊),as an important reference,and developed an epistemic cognition of the evolution history of ancient iron in China.Then,taking the iron craft level as the main yardstick,he examined the economic development level of ancient society and identified the social formations of China in the pre⁃Qin period.Although the later Marxist historians’theories of social formation research have their own merits,most of them are deeply influenced by Guo Moruo’s social research model.In a word,Guo Moruo pushed the application of historical materialism in China to a new height,created a new paradigm linking economic history with social formations,leading to the rise of Marxist historiography in China.At the same time,however,he relied too much on“iron”to judge the level of productive forces,and was thus prone to miscalculation or even fell into the mire of“determinism of production tools,”which became one of the crucial points criticized and attacked by other historians.