向社会作调查(社会学称之为社会调查),本是古今中外许多有识之士了解社会的一个常用手法。这种手法的采用,曾在协调社会各方面的关系、维护社会稳定上起过一定的作用。尤其是到了近代,社会调查更加专业化、系统化和理论化,标志着人类社会认识自身的方法进入了一个新阶段。无产阶级革命导师马克思、恩格斯在创立革命理论时,沿着人类社会文明发展的大道,他们既充分吸取了前人和同时代人所作的社会调查的成果,又亲自对所处社会的状况进行了许多实际调查,正是在大量直接和间接的调查研究的基础上,才创立了科学的共产主义学说, Investigating the society (sociology calls it a social survey) is a common practice used by many people of insight both at home and abroad to understand society. The adoption of this tactic has played a certain role in coordinating all aspects of social relations and maintaining social stability. Especially in modern times, social investigation is more specialized, systematic and theorized, marking a new stage in the way that human society knows itself. Marxist and Engels, the proletarian revolutionary mentors, started along the road of civilization development in human society when they founded the revolutionary theory. They not only fully learned the fruits of the social survey made by their predecessors and their contemporaries but also conducted a survey of the situation in their own society Many actual investigations, just on the basis of a large number of direct and indirect investigations and studies, have created a scientific communist theory,