“Gesellschaftsformation” is an important concept created and used by Marx on the basis of his research on capitalism, geology and world history. The very object that “Gesellschaftsformation”, as a new concept, needs to grasp is the social composition similar to geological structure, which means a social organism in continuous composition and change. The method of studying this social organism and its evolution is Marx’s science of history based on “concrete society”, rather than the general philosophy of history based on “abstract society” The science of history intrinsically requires understanding historical laws and evolutionary sequence in the concrete society, probing into the primitive differences between Asiatic society and Western society, and breaking the ideological colonization behind bourgeois civilization. The reinterpretation of “Gesellschaftsformation” not only presents the original context and its multiple meanings, but also provides a methodological guidance for exploring the real history, civilizational foundation and socialist road of a specific society. 

　　Editor: Zhong Yao  Deng Panyi 

　　From: Philosophical Research.2024.No.9.