Wang Su and Wu Jinjing: Historical Laws and Historical Subjects from the Perspective of Historical Materialism

“The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political, and intellectual life.” This is the profound revelation offered by Marxism regarding historical laws. The unfolding of this objective law must occur through the “real movement which abolishes the present state of things,” and the fundamental force driving this movement is precisely the “activity of the masses.” The scientific nature of historical materialism lies in its profound grasp of the dialectical unity between the objective laws of history’s own development and the practice of the people as the subjects of history. Historical laws provide the objective direction and historical necessity for social transformation, while the historical subject—the people—constitutes the material force that recognizes, applies, and realizes these laws. The relationship between historical laws and the historical subject is a concrete and historical unity based on practice. This unity is not a static correspondence but a dynamic, developing process of interaction that runs through the entire development of human society, forming the core theoretical kernel of historical materialism.

The Unity of the Constraints of Historical Laws and the Agency of the Historical Subject

As objective necessity, historical laws set the fundamental space of possibility and the insurmountable boundaries for the historical process. By prescribing the basic trends of social development, historical laws provide the fundamental constraints and premises for the activities of historical subjects, granting their historical movements a realistic stage, objective conditions, and a space of possibility. Human practical activity cannot escape the shackles of the productive forces, nor can it create history arbitrarily by transcending the universal laws governing the succession of social forms. As Engels emphasized: “The present society can only be transformed gradually, and private property can only be abolished after the necessary mass of means of production has been created.” This indicates that the realization of historical laws is staged and conditional; the practical activities of any historical subject cannot create history according to their own whims, detached from these objective constraints. These laws act as a “possibility boundary,” delimiting the scope of human activity in a specific era.

The practical activities of the historical subject imbue historical development with the characteristic of conscious agency. Although historical laws are objective, their paths of realization and concrete forms depend on the level of understanding and the practical choices of the historical subject. Marx emphasized: “Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” This practice of “changing the world” is the concentrated expression of the historical subject exercising subjective agency on the basis of recognizing historical laws. Engels further explained: “Men make their own history, whatever its outcome may be, in that each person follows his own consciously desired end, and it is precisely the resultant of these many wills operating in different directions and of their manifold effects upon the outer world that constitutes history.” The practical activities of countless individuals pursuing their conscious goals interact to form a “resultant force,” which ultimately shapes the concrete face of the historical process.

In terms of social reality, the constraints of historical laws and the agency of historical subjects determine “why” and “how” historical events occur. The objectivity of historical laws prescribes the direction, limits, and final results of the historical subject’s practical activities, drawing an insurmountable boundary for their practice. Any creation must take place under “conditions inherited from the past,” which are themselves the concretization of laws at a specific historical stage. Simultaneously, this reveals that the subject is by no means a passive follower of laws. Historical laws are not fate; they must be brought to life through the practical activities of hundreds of millions of people. Only by actively choosing a realistic path that conforms to fundamental interests and the direction of social progress within the space allowed by the laws can the necessity of those laws be realized through conscious practice, moving from abstract possibility to concrete reality.

The Unity of the Necessity of Historical Laws and the Selectivity of the Historical Subject

Historical laws are the objective and necessary trends running through the entire process of human social development; they are essential connections independent of human will. Marx profoundly revealed the core connotation of these laws: “At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or—this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms—with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto.” The contradictory movement between productive forces and relations of production makes the whole of social life present itself as a law-governed process of development. This allows the process of the succession of social forms and the objectivity of laws to manifest, thereby presenting an unalterable objective trend that determines the replacement and evolutionary direction of social forms.

Within the framework of necessity provided by historical laws, the historical subject can choose different paths, strategies, forms, and speeds based on their own interest requirements to influence the manifestation of historical laws. The agentic practical activities of the historical subject cause the historical process to present different concrete appearances, detailed nuances, tortuous progressions, or accidental events. In class society, different classes—based on their positions in the relations of production and their interest demands—possess differences in their understanding of and attitudes toward historical laws, which in turn drive history toward different directions. This struggle between classes constitutes the vital content of historical movement in class societies; the class attribute of the historical subject profoundly influences the process of realizing historical laws. This is the concrete embodiment of the richness and vitality of historical laws within the specific historical practice of the historical subject.

In the processual nature of historical development, the unity of historical laws and historical subjects determines the necessary trend of social forms evolving from lower to higher stages, ultimately realizing the free and well-rounded development of individuals. The specific roads, forms, and rhythms of this realization depend on the agentic choices of the historical subject at critical junctures. Within the possibilities opened up by the laws, different choices will cause the historical process to take on diverse concrete appearances. However, the subject’s choice is not one of subjective arbitrariness; it is constrained by objective laws, historical conditions, and the subject’s own level of understanding, and it is tested and corrected by laws through social practice. Choices that conform to historical laws can effectively drive society forward in the right direction, while choices that violate those laws—no matter how powerful they may seem for a time—will eventually be corrected by the necessary trends of history. Therefore, the evolutionary process of social forms profoundly reflects the objective necessity of historical laws while vividly demonstrating the significant meaning of the historical subject’s agentic choice.

The Unity of Social Progress and the Free and Well-Rounded Development of Individuals

The objective operation of historical laws serves as the “background of necessity” for social progress. Marxism holds that historical laws are not transcendent “Absolute Spirits” or abstract “Rational Laws,” but the objective products of contradictory movement. This is the manifestation of non-volition in the process of social progress; the laws governing the operation of the basic contradictions of society prescribe the fundamental nature and basic trends of the social development process, thereby prescribing the laws governing the succession of social forms. As Marx said: “No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed.” At the same time, historical laws endow the direction of social progress with prescriptivity; historical progress proceeds with an irreversible trend, and all of these are forms through which historical laws are realized.

As the carrier of realization and the practical force of historical laws, the historical subject achieves their own free and well-rounded development while promoting social progress. Historical laws are not “iron laws” external to humans, but objective trends within human practical activity; their direction of action is closely linked to human liberation. The laws of the development of productive forces reveal that the enhancement of productive forces necessarily requires the adjustment of the relations of production, eventually breaking the old systems that restrict human development. While capitalism liberates productive forces, it also creates the proletariat—the historical subject that will overthrow it and achieve human liberation. The laws of the succession of social forms reveal that from slave society to feudal society, capitalist society, and then to socialist and communist society, each stage expands the space for human freedom (despite the accompanying contradictions). The essential requirement of socialism is precisely to provide institutional guarantees for the well-rounded development of the person by eliminating exploitation and alienation.

The trends of historical development manifest as the unity of social progress and the free and well-rounded development of individuals. The process of realizing historical laws and the process of developing the historical subject are isomorphic processes that promote and fulfill one another. The social progress driven by historical laws manifests as the continuous development of productive forces, profound transformations in social relations, and the evolutionary replacement of institutions. This creates increasingly superior material foundations, social conditions, and intellectual spaces for the development of the historical subject. The deeper the subject’s understanding of historical laws and the stronger their practical ability, the more consciously they can promote the adaptation of the relations of production to the development of productive forces and the adaptation of the superstructure to the economic base, thereby effectively accelerating the process of social progress. The three stages of development Marx revealed—moving from “relations of personal dependence” through “personal independence based on objective [material] dependence” to “free individuality”—correspond highly with the evolutionary sequence of human social forms, serving as a vivid manifestation of this dialectical unity. In this process, freedom is not an escape from necessity but “necessity understood.” It is the self-affirmation and true liberation achieved by the historical subject in the practice of profoundly grasping and consciously applying laws to transform the world, thereby further driving society toward higher forms.