Dr Ambrose King wishes to thank Miss Barbara E. Ward for her valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper. His gratitude is also especially due to the Leverhulme Foundation for supporting his visit to Great Britain and to Clare Hall, Cambridge, for providing him with a culturally rich and most stimulating environment during his stay.

¹ Ambrose, Yeo-chi King and Wang, Tse-sang, She-hue-hsueh tsai Chung-Kuo (Sociology in China), monograph (forthcoming), Social Research Centre, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar See also Kwan-hai, Lung, She-hue-hsueh (Sociology) (San-Ming, Taiwan, 1971),Google Scholar and Wong, Siu-lun, ‘Sociology in the People's Republic of China 1949–1968’ (unpublished Master's Thesis, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1971).Google Scholar

² Sun, Pen-wen, She-hue-hsueh yuan-li (Principles of Sociology), 2 vols (Commercial Press, reprinted, Taipei, 1956).Google Scholar

³ Among them there are Fei, Hsiao-tung, Peasant Life in China (London, 1939);Google ScholarChen, Ta, Emigrant Communities in South China (London, 1939);Google ScholarYang, C. K., A North China Local Market Economy (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1944)Google Scholar and A Chinese Village in Early Transition (Cambridge, Mass., 1959);Google ScholarChing-han, Li, A Social Study of Tien Hsien (Tien Hsien yen-chiu, 1933);Google ScholarFrancis, L. K. Hsu, Under the Ancestor's Shadow (New York, 1948);Google ScholarMartin, Yang, A Chinese Village (New York, 1945);Google ScholarYueh-hwa, Lin, The Golden Wing (London, 1948).Google Scholar

⁴ Kwan-hai, Lung, She-hue-hsueh.Google Scholar

⁵ Fried, Morton, ‘China’, in Roucek, J. S. (ed.), Contemporary Sociology (New York: Philosophical Library, 1958), pp. 993–1012;Google ScholarFrancis, L. K. Hsu, ‘Sociological Research in China’, Quarterly Bulletin of Chinese Bibliography, New Series, Vol. IV, Nos 1–4 (03-12 1944), (Chung ching, China, 1944) p. 12.Google Scholar

⁶ Consult Benjamin, Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (Cambridge, Mass: Hardvard University Press, 1964).Google Scholar

⁷ Consult Levenson, Joseph, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, 3 vols (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1958–1965).Google Scholar

⁸ Many sociologists have viewed Saint-Simon as the ‘Father’ of sociology, and as influencing both Comte and Marx who were then responsible for, or credited with, the development of two rival sociological traditions. Consult Giddens, A., Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (Cambridge University Press, 1971);CrossRefGoogle ScholarGouldner, A. W., For Sociology (Penguin, 1975), pp. 369–91;Google Scholar and Bottomore, T. B. and Rubel, M., (eds) Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy (Penguin, 1963), introduction.Google Scholar

⁹ Lng, Kwan-hai, She-hue-hsueh.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Fried, , ‘China’, in Roucek, (ed.), Contemporary Sociology.Google Scholar

¹¹ See article by Shih, Hu, Mei Chou ping lun, Shanghai (07) 1916.Google Scholar

¹² Selected work of Li Ta-chao (Peoples' Press, Peking, 1962), pp. 6ff.Google Scholar

¹³ Parsons, Talcott, ‘Some Problems Confronting Sociology as a Profession’, in Lipset, S. M. and Smelser, N. (eds), Sociology: The Progress of a Decade (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1961), pp. 14–30;Google Scholar and Bramson, Leon, The Political Context of Sociology (Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 73–95.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Hsiao-tung, Fei, ‘She-hue hsueh ying tse yang kai tsao’ (How Sociology Should be Reconstructed), New Construction, No. 2 (12 1950), pp. 20–3.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Hsu, Francis, ‘Sociological Research in China.’Google Scholar

¹⁶ An example of sociologists participating in Kuomintang government policy-making can be found in their formulation of Four Social Policies (i.e. policy toward the preservation of minority groups; policy toward peasants; labour policy and social service policy) for the Ministry of Social Affairs in 1945.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Hsu, Francis, ‘Sociological Research in China’.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Touraine, Aline, The Post-Industrial Society, trans. Mayhew, L.F.X. (London: Wildwood House, 1974).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Skinner, G. W., ‘The New Sociology in China’, Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 4 (08 1951), pp. 365–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁰ The phenomenon of the indigenization of sociology in China, however, cannot be too overdrawn. Indeed, no sociological theorizing or schools of thought which were distinctively Chinese ever developed. However, according to Fei, the use of Chinese data as the content of sociology courses had been the practice of Chinese sociologists for several decades before 1949. See Fei Hsiao-tung, ‘How Sociology Should be Reconstructed’.Google Scholar

²¹ Mao Tse-tung in 1949 wrote (in retrospect?): ‘The salvoes of the October Revolution brought us Marxism-Leninism. The October Revolution helped progressives in China, as throughout the world, to adopt the proletarian world outlook as the instrument for studying a nation's destiny and considering anew their own problems. Follow the path of the Russians—that was their conclusion.’Tse-tung, Mao, Selected Works (English edn, Foreign Language Press, Peking, 1961), Vol. IV, p. 413.Google Scholar

²² Consult Brandt, Conrad, Schwartz, Benjamin and Fairbank, John, A Documentary History of Chinese Communism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²³ Hsiao-tung, Fei, ‘How Sociology Should be Reconstructed’.Google Scholar

²⁴ Che-min, Ma, Shin she-hue-hsueh (New Sociology), 1937;Google ScholarTa, Li, Shin she-hue-hsueh Ta-Kang (Outline of New Sociology), 1947.Google Scholar

²⁵ See Ta, Li, ‘Outline of New Sociology’.Google Scholar

²⁶ Bukharin, N., Historical Materialism: A System of Sociology (first published in Moscow, 1921, English trans. 1926).Google Scholar

²⁷ The attitude of the Chinese Communist party towards non-Marxist academic disciplines, especially psychology, immediately after 1949, is well dealt with in Chin, Robert and Chin, Ai-li, Psychological Research in Communist China: 1949–1966 (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1969).Google Scholar

²⁸ Quoted in Fei Hsiao-tung, ‘How Sociology should be Reconstructed’.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ See Skinner, , ‘The New Sociology in China’.Google Scholar

³¹ Ibid.

³² Kuang Ming Daily, 9 06 1957, p. 3.Google Scholar Quoted in Siu-lun, Wong, ‘Social Enquiries in the People's Republic of China’, Sociology, Vol. 9, No. 3 (09 1975), pp. 459–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³³ Hsiao-tung, Fei, ‘Chih shih fen-tzu tsao chun tien chi’ (The Intellectuals' Early Spring), People's Daily, 24 03, 1957.Google Scholar

³⁴ Mao Tse-tung Wen Hsuan (Selected Readings of Mao Tse-tung), Version A (People's Press, Peking, 1969), pp. 331, 357–8.Google Scholar

³⁵ It was reported in an article entitled ‘Fei Hsiao-tung teng tu mou chiu she-hue-hsueh fu-pi ti yin-mou’ (The Conspiracy of Restoring Old Sociology by Fei Hsiaotung and Others), People's Daily, 30 08 1957.Google Scholar

³⁶ ‘Kuan yu she-hue-hsueh yen-chiu ti tui hsiang ho nei yung-tso tan hue chi lu chai-yao’ (Concerning the Objects and Contents of Sociological Research—A Summary of a Discussion Committee), New Construction (07, 1957), pp. 43–9.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ibid.

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ Ibid.

⁴⁰ See Fisher, G. (ed.), Science and Ideology in Soviet Society (New York: Atherton, 1967);Google ScholarSimiranko, Alex (ed.), Soviet Sociology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967).Google Scholar

⁴¹ As early as 1938, Mao had said: ‘There is no such thing as abstract Marxism, but only concrete Marxism. What we call concrete Marxism is Marxism that has taken on a national form, that is, Marxism applied to the concrete struggle in the concrete conditions prevailing in China, and not Marxism abstractly used.’ Mao had also assigned equal weight to ‘research’; he wrote in 1942; ‘If we have only read this theory [Marxism-Leninism] but have not used it as a basis for research in China's historical and revolutionary actuality, have not created a theory in accordance with China's real necessities, a theory that is our own and of a specific nature, then it would be irresponsible to call ourselves Marxist theoreticians.’Google Scholar Quoted in Schram, S.R., The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (Penguin, 1969) pp. 172–4.Google Scholar

⁴² Ching-han, Li, ‘Peking chiaochu hsiang-tsun chia-ting ti chin hsi (The Past and Present of Village Family Life on the Outskirts of Peking’), People's Daily, 1–302 1957.Google Scholar

⁴³ Hsiao-tung, Fei, ‘Chung fang kiang-tsun’ (A Revisit to a Village in the Yangtse Delta), Hsin Kuan Cha, No. 11 (1957), pp. 3–7, and No. 12 (1957), pp. 11–14.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Mo-jo, Kuo, (1957), ‘She-hue-ko-hsueh chieh ti fan-yu tou cheng pi hsu ching i pu shen ju’ (The Anti-Rightist Struggle of Social Sciences Must Go One Step Deeper), People's Daily, 19 09 1957.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Ta, Li, ‘Pi-pan Fei Hsiao-tung ti mai-pan she-hue-hsueh’ (Criticizing Fei Hsiaotung's Comprador Sociology), Che-hsueh yen-chiu (Philosophical Research), No. 5 (1957), pp. 4–18.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Pen-Wen, Sun, ‘Chien-chueh fan-tui tzu-chan chieh-chieh she-hue-hsueh fu-pi’ (Oppose Determinedly the Restoration of Bourgeois Sociology), Wen-hui Pao, Shanghai, 4 10 1957.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Te-ling, Tao, ‘Yu-pai she-hue-hsueh chia so chui hsu ti she-hue tiao-Cha shih she-ma huo-shih?’ (What Are the Facts of Sociological Research the Rightist Sociologists Boast of?), Hsueh-shi, No. 4 (1958), p. 11;Google Scholar and Yen-fen, Chin, ‘Tsung “Chung fan Kiang-tsun” chieh Fei Hsiao-tung ti cheng-chi yin-mou’ (Discovering Fei Hsiao-tung's Political Conspiracy from his ‘A Revisit to a Village in the Yangtse Delta’), Wen-hui Pao, Shanghai, 21 09 1957, p. 21.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Gouldner, while vigorously criticizing ‘positivistic’ sociology, seems to believe that sociology as an empirical science has contributed to human emancipation and continues to have a liberative potential. See Gouldner, , For Sociology, esp. pp. 396–400.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ To view sociology as a social criticism, see Bottomore, T. B., Sociology as Social Criticism (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1975).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Guillain, Robert remarks in Le Monde, ‘It is no over-simplification of the massive series of reforms [of the ‘Cultural Revolution’]…to say that their key objective—defined by Chairman Mao himself—is the elimination of the academic intellectual’.Google Scholar Quoted in Gouldner, , For Sociology, p. 450.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Siu-lun, Wong, ‘Social Enquiries in the People's Republic of China’, Sociology, Vol. 9, No. 3 (09 1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵² Yeo-chi King, Ambrose and Tse-sang, Wang, ‘Social Investigations in Communist China: The Emergence of Maoist Sociology’, Journal of Social and Political Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 3 (07 1976).Google Scholar