Mark Twain once said: History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. It means "History is always strikingly similar, but it does not simply repeat itself."

History will always be the same. True repetition is impossible because this situation has been proven philosophically impossible, as Heraclitus famously said, "One cannot step into the same river twice." This famous saying means, The water in the river is constantly flowing. This time you step into the river, the water flows away. The next time you step into the river, new water flows in. The river keeps flowing, so you can't step into the same river. This famous saying of Heraclitus shows that objective things are eternally in motion. Such a truth is changing and developing. Engels once commented: "This primitive, simple but essentially correct world view is the world view of ancient Greek philosophy, and it was clearly stated for the first time by Heraclitus: everything exists, and the same pair does not exist. , because everything is flowing, constantly changing, constantly coming into being and disappearing.” Heraclitus also believed that things are transformed into each other. Cold becomes hot, hot becomes cold, wet becomes dry, dry becomes wet. He also clearly asserted: "We go down but not down the same river. We exist but do not exist."

There is a historical theory (Marx's historical materialism) that believes that history is a spiral Rising. As a supporter of this theory, I think the situation you describe should be attributed to the narrowness of your perspective on history. If history is an upward spiral, then you only stand at the top of history. Looking down, what you see is a circle that keeps returning to the origin and repeating itself. But as long as you move your perspective down to the side of this spiral, you will see that the trajectory of history has never repeated itself. See The movement that seems to be returning to the starting point has actually risen a certain distance and reached a new historical height.

For example, according to the classical view of history, Chinese history seems to have been repeating the cycle of "one rule and one chaos". For example, the Qin and Han Dynasties were both destroyed by peasant uprisings and warlord melees. But in fact, although the Qin Empire's demise began with peasant uprisings, it was actually destroyed by the descendants of the aristocrats of the Six Kingdoms who had not yet been fully digested. The Han Empire was also destroyed by peasant uprisings. , but it was mainly destroyed by the new separatist forces that emerged within the regime. The demise of almost all dynasties began with peasant uprisings, but it was the new social classes that emerged in each era that ultimately dealt the fatal blow. This is the best example of the so-called spiral historical trajectory.