Abstract:

To clarify the history of Chinese social sciences is significant for accelerating the establishment of the “three systems” of philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics and the construction of independent knowledge system. The period of democratic revolution, particularly the 1920s and 1930s, is a crucial stage for tentatively exploring the independent knowledge system of Chinese social sciences. The introduction of the term “social sciences” in modern China experienced a context switch from “sciences” to “society”, leaving an intellectual space for the tentative exploration of the independent knowledge system of Chinese social sciences. In the process of criticizing “Social Sciences of the Three People’s Principles”, the expansion of “Social Sciences of Marxism” established a discourse basis for the tentative exploration of the independent knowledge system of Chinese social sciences. Furthermore, the “New Social Sciences” that applied materialistic dialectics to the research of social sciences and the “New Social Sciences Movement” which was guided by social sciences of Marxism provided academic carriers for the tentative exploration of the independent knowledge system of Chinese social sciences. As a creative combination and innovative development of Marxist theory and social sciences research, the tentative exploration of independent knowledge system of Chinese social sciences not only provided the Communist Party of China with discourse tools and theoretical weapons for revolutionary struggles, but also constituted the knowledge source and theoretical foundation for the comprehensive transformational change of Chinese social sciences in the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Key words: social sciences, independent knowledge system, new social sciences, Marxism, Communist Party of China