29

p China was a feudal state for nigh on two thousand years. Capitalism did not really begin to develop there until the latter half of the nineteenth century, and could still not be said to predominate in Chinese society at the time of the Russian October Revolution of 1917. At the turn of the century China remained a semi-feudal country, socially and economically backward.

p In speaking of feudalism in China it must be borne in mind that the system had its own peculiar features there. Chinese feudalism ensured not only the prevalence of natural economy, combining agriculture with domestic industry, but also excessive concentration of land in the hands of the landlords and its total expropriation from the peasants. The peasant was wholly dependent on the landowner, for he depended on his lease for his very livelihood, and he had far less rights or freedom than his European counterpart. This was due to the fact that the peasant was entirely dependent on the state as well as his landlord, for the latter was generally an official in the imperial service.

p It was in the interests of this feudal bureaucracy to keep the peasantry under their constant control. To this end, not only political and economic coercion, but all the ideological institutions of the feudal state were employed. A tremendous role in the preservation of feudal production relations was played by Confucianism, which remained the most influential ideology in China for almost two thousand years. Confucianism, with its insistence on submission to the Emperor and the aristocracy and unfailing observance of the feudal code of law and morality was ideally suited to the purposes of the feudal aristocracy. The cornerstone of 30 Confucianism was unquestioning obedience to one’s seniors in age and position, and of the whole nation to the Emperor.

p Describing the situation in the society of Western Europe in medieval times as a result of the political dictatorship of the Church, Engels wrote: "Church dogmas were also political axioms, and Bible quotations had the validity of law in any court.. .. This domination of theology over the entire realm of intellectual activity was at the same time an inevitable consequence of the fact that the Church was the allembracing synthesis of the most general sanction of the existing feudal domination.”  [30•1 

p A roughly similar situation is to be observed in Chinese medieval feudal society. Thus we might say, paraphrasing Engels, that Confucian dogmas were also political axioms, and the verdict in any court was based on quotations from Confucius. Confucianism, as the all-pervading, official ideology stifled all creative endeavour among the masses and prevented the development of science and technology.

p The persistence of feudal production relations and the general stagnation of Chinese society made China an easy prey for outside interference when it came and she was unable to withstand the combined onset of the imperialist powers—England, France, Germany, the United States, Japan, Russia and Italy. By the beginning of the present century, China was held in political and economic bondage by world imperialism. She was shorn of her vassal states, Burma, Annam, Korea, Nepal, Sikkim and others, lost the island of Taiwan which had always formed part of her territory, to Japan, and was carved up into various spheres of influence. Foreign concessions and settlements were established and foreigners acquired extra-territorial rights and control over the Chinese exchequer.

p Although China’s defeat at the hands of the imperialist powers and the resulting inflow of foreign capital accelerated the development of capitalist relations in town and countryside, Chinese society remained fundamentally unchanged. The result was merely an extra burden for the exploited masses, in that to the yoke of the Manchu and Chinese feudal lords the yoke of the foreign capitalists was added.

p The Chinese social structure was determined by feudal 31 production relations. The peasantry still formed the largest class—three-quarters of the total population. The working class was still numerically small, and even in the twenties did not number more than about two million. The vast majority of these were unskilled workers who had only recently migrated from the land. Small enterprises predominated and vestiges of the guild-type organisation of the pre-capitalist period were still strong.

p The special features of China’s socio-economic development naturally meant that the revolutionary movement, when it got under way in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the early years of the present century, also had rather special features. One of these was that the aims of national and social emancipation went hand in hand, another that the peasant movement was widespread at a time when the labour movement was in its infancy and confined entirely to the major coastal cities. The labour movement and peasant revolts were only tenuously connected.

p Political opposition to the ruling Manchu Ch’ing Dynasty came from three directions—the peasant-plebeian, the bourgeois-revolutionary and liberal, and the bourgeois- landowner. The largest outbreaks of peasant revolt were the T’ai P’ing rebellion (1850-1864) and the Boxer rebellion (1898- 1901), the latter drawing some response from certain sections of the urban poor. The bourgeois-landowner opposition was represented by a group of reformers led by Kang Yu-wei and Liang Chi-chao, while the bourgeois- revolutionary opposition comprised bourgeois democrats under Sun Yat-sen.

p Each of these branches of the opposition movement proposed its own solutions to social and national problems. The T’ai P’ing were for setting up a just social order based on the principle of making all its members equal in the sphere of production and consumption, i.e., were advocating a variety of "peasant communism”. Sun Yat-sen’s programme corresponded in many ways to that of the T’ai P’ing. It consisted of three basic national principles: “nationalism”, or the demand that the foreign Manchu Dynasty should be overthrown and the rights of the Chinese—Han—nation restored; "people’s power”, or the setting up of a democratic republic, and "national welfare”, or the demand for "equal rights to the land”, i.e., the nationalisation of the land and 32 the transfer of land rents to the state. The demands of the Right wing of the opposition movement were rather more moderate than those of the T’ai P’ing or Sun Yat-sen, and amounted to the transfer to constitutional monarchy, without jeopardising the political and economic interests of the Chinese bourgeoisie and the so-called "enlightened feudal lords" associated with capitalist elements in the towns.

p None of these programmes were capable of providing a real solution to the problems deriving from China’s historical development, and at best could only have furthered the transformation of China into a capitalist state. The T’ai P’ing idea of equal distribution of the land would have led to the abolition of the feudal estates, but it was combined with the Utopian dream of uniting the peasants in militarised patriarchal communes based on the principles of " consumer communism”. Sun Yat-sen’s "three national principles”, although progressive and genuinely democratic, showed that the great Chinese revolutionary democrat failed to grasp the class nature of social contradictions and the anti- imperialist and anti-feudal tasks of the revolution that had matured in the country, and reduced them to an essentially national conflict between the Chinese (Han) and the Manchurians. Sun Yat-sen’s programme for agrarian reform, involving nationalisation and equal partitioning of the land, was described by Lenin as "subjective socialism”, since it did not include the socialisation of the means of production and was thus objectively bound to lead to the development of capitalist relations.

p Due to the alliance between the bourgeois-landlord camp and the feudal-militarist and compradore-bureaucrat reactionaries, the lack of political cohesion in the revolutionarydemocratic wing of the national bourgeoisie, and especially its failure to unite with the peasantry, the revolution of 1911 failed to solve the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal tasks that faced the country. It must also be noted that in their struggle against the Manchurians for the national revival of China, many members of the various opposition groups counted on support from the imperialist powers, harbouring illusions about their long-term aims in China.

p The year 1917 saw China still economically backward and politically dependent on the imperialist powers. The triumph of the October Revolution in Russia made many 33 revolutionaries and other progressives in China take a new look at the problems of the social and political emancipation of the Chinese people, and turn to the experience of the Bolshevik Party and Marxist theory. Mao wrote in 1949: "The Chinese were introduced to Marxism by the Russians. Before the October Revolution, the Chinese were not only unaware of Lenin and Stalin but did not even know of Marx or Engels. The salvoes of the October Revolution brought us Marxism-Leninism. The October Revolution helped the advanced people of China and of the whole world to adopt a proletarian world outlook as an instrument for looking into a nation’s future or for reconsidering one’s own problems. Follow the path of the Russians—this was the conclusion.”  [33•1 

p Thus, even Mao Tse-tung was at one time prepared to admit that Chinese society was ignorant of, or at least not very familiar with, Marxism prior to 1917. Many Chinese participating in political life came to adopt Marxism solely under the influence of the Russian Revolution, and not as a natural result of their political activities.

p Indeed, Marxism only began to penetrate China after 1917. This is not to say, of course, that the Chinese were previously unaware of the existence of Marxism. Several of Marx and Engels’ works had already been translated into Chinese—Chapter One of The Manifesto of the Communist Party and Engels’ introduction, part of Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and his Socialism: Utopian and Scientific—while many articles on Marxism had appeared, including "Short Biographies of the German Revolutionary Socialists" by Sun Yat-sen’s close associate Chu Chih-hsin which contained biographies of Marx, Engels and Lassale. However, all this merely served to give the Chinese a rather sketchy outline of scientific socialism. It was only after the October Revolution that advanced Chinese intellectuals began to acquire a proper knowledge of Marxism.

p It must be realised, however, that many Chinese revolutionaries, including members of the Chinese Communist Party, had very hazy notions of Marxism, since they had 34 often acquired their knowledge of it second-hand. The first translators and popularisers of Marxism were often people with basically bourgeois-democratic views, like Chu Chihhsin, who in the above-mentioned article criticised several of Marx’s theses from a petty-bourgeois standpoint. Moreover, many of those who claimed to be Marxists were merely opportunists using Marxist doctrine as a means to an end. Seeing the success with which Marxism was being applied in Russia and other countries, they regarded Marxist ideas as a means of national salvation, as a means of liberating China from external and internal oppression. Many of those who embraced Marxism at this period did so in the belief that this was the only ideology capable of recovering China’s former might. Thus, many of those who called themselves Marxists in fact remained bourgeois nationalists or at most revolutionary democrats.

p Furthermore, the span of time between the spread of Marxist ideas and the creation of a Communist Party was far shorter in China than in Europe. Whereas, in Lenin’s words, "Russia achieved Marxism through the agony she experienced through half a century”, the same cannot be said of China. Nor had the ground been prepared for the founding of the Chinese Communist Party by successes of the labour movement, as was the case in Russia, for example. On the contrary, the Chinese proletariat was still in its infancy and had not yet organised itself properly or developed a strong class consciousness. Indeed, a labour movement as an independent political force was to all intents and purposes non-existent in China in the first two decades of the present century.

p Lenin insisted that socialist revolution is not merely a workers’ revolution, but a revolution of all levels of society that are subject to capitalist exploitation, and that it comprises not only the revolutionary movement of the working class but also the mass struggle of the peasantry and other layers. "Whoever expects a ‘pure’ social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip-service to revolution without understanding what revolution is.... The socialist revolution in Europe cannot be anything other than an outburst of mass struggle on the part of all and sundry oppressed and discontented elements. Inevitably, sections of the petty bourgeoisie and of the backward workers will 35 participate in it—without such participation, mass struggle is impossible, without it no revolution is possible—and just as inevitably will they bring into the revolution their prejudices, their reactionary fantasies, their weaknesses and errors. But objectively they will attack capital, and the class- conscious vanguard of the revolution, the advanced proletariat, expressing this objective truth of a variegated and discordant, motley and outwardly fragmented, mass struggle, will be able to unite and direct it, capture power, seize the banks, expropriate the trusts which all hate (though for different reasons!), and introduce other dictatorial measures which in their totality will amount to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the victory of socialism, which, however, will by no means immediately ‘purge’ itself of petty-bourgeois slag.”  [35•1 

p Although in this appraisal of the objective difficulties in the path of the working-class revolutionary movement Lenin had Europe in mind, his words are equally applicable to China, with appropriate additions. The Chinese workers and their Party had to conduct their activities from the very outset amid a boundless ocean of peasant farms and surrounded in the towns by a numerically strong petty bourgeoisie. The situation was aggravated by the weakness of the working class and its organisations, and the immaturity of the first working-class revolutionaries. In view of the widespread interest in Marxism among the petty bourgeoisie and bourgeois intellectuals after 1917, the working class was often unable to withstand the pressure of alien views on its ideology. As a result, the Chinese Communist Party, from its inception (1921), was joined not only by Marxists, but also by large numbers of bourgeois nationalists, revolutionary democrats, anarchists, supporters of peasant socialism and so on, who brought with them their prejudices, reactionary fantasies, weaknesses and errors.

p Mao Tse-tung is certainly to be counted among these non-Marxists. Strongly influenced in his early days by Confucianism, he perceived Marxist theses through the prism of the Confucian outlook. Maoist philosophy derives from two sources: the traditional (Confucian) ideology, whose chief elements are feudal ethics and chauvinism, and various 36 bourgeois doctrines, both Chinese and European. This explains why Mao Tse-tung’s theoretical baggage is so remarkably lightweight.

p “ Marxist philosophy is a revolutionary-critical generalisation of all previous philosophical thought. The direct predecessor and source of Marxist philosophy was German classical philosophy, represented first and foremost by Hegel and Feuerbach. Hegel’s creation of the system of laws and categories of dialectics, and Feuerbach’s materialist thesis that nature and man are the only objective realities and his insistence on practice as the criterion of truth were all major achievements for world philosophy and testify to the fact that at the time Marx and Engels began their theoretical work European philosophy had reached a high level of development. If we take a look at the Chinese philosophy of the same period we shall find that it presents a very different picture.

p Due to a number of historical causes, and above all the persistence of the feudal mode of production (in spiritual life this was reflected in the prevalence of effete neo-Confucian scholasticism) theoretical thought in China in the mid- nineteenth century lagged far behind that of Europe. Whereas at the dawn of world civilisation Chinese philosophy had given examples of profound (for the time of course) penetration into the essence of human nature and relationships and interesting dialectical conceptions extending to a relatively wide range of problems, and whereas the names of Confucius, Lao Tzu, Hsiin-Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Mo-tzu and Yang Chu have a right to a place alongside such Western philosophers of first rank as Heraclitus, Democritus, Plato and Aristotle, in the Middle Ages, and especialy in modern times, the position is very different.

p This is not to say that these later periods have been totally lacking in great thinkers. There were such brilliantly original minds and free-thinkers as Fan Chen (5th century) and Han Yu (8th-9th c.), the materialists Chow Tun-i (llth c.), Chang Tsai (12th c.), Wang Fu-ch’i (17th c.) and Tai Chen (18th c.), the original intuitive-idealist Wang Yang-ming (16th- 17th c.) and the interesting social philosopher Huang Tsung-hsi (17th c.) and many others. However, in the development of Chinese philosophy as a whole we can note the following general tendencies. Firstly, a 37 somewhat narrow range of interest, confined mainly to ethics, treated largely in terms of man’s duty and obligations to (feudal) society, and the subordination of personal freedom to the authority of the state. Secondly, a schematic, descriptive approach and an overwhelming tendency to turn to the past in explaining the phenomena of the external world. Thirdly, excessive preoccupation with traditional problems and excessive use of time-honoured terms.

p The metaphysicism characteristic of European philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, although one-sided, nevertheless represented a step forward from the naive dialectics of the ancient Greeks. It stressed the need for detailed investigation of material objects and thorough analysis of their characteristics. Descartes and Spinoza, Leibnitz and La Mettrie, Holbach and Diderot heralded a jiew age in the history of world philosophy.

p Chinese philosophy, on the other hand, never really went through a metaphysical stage. The primitive dialectics of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, while undergoing certain modifications, chiefly in the form of borrowings from the Buddhist dialectics, continued to hold sway over Chinese thought right up to the beginning of the present century.  [37•1 

p In the middle, and even the latter part of the nineteenth century, Chinese philosophers were often still chewing over what had been written and said not only by their immediate predecessors, but by those who had lived as much as two thousand years before them. They went on repeating ideas, on the basis of the traditional concepts of Yin, Yang, Tao, Tai Chi, etc. In 1893, Cheng Huan-ying, an ideologist of the emergent Chinese bourgeoisie, published a book entitled Bold Talk in the Age of Florescence (Sheng-shi weiyan), in which he proposed a series of political reforms to promote the technical and economic modernisation of China.  [37•2  In the "Tao Chi”, the part where the author presented 38 the philosophical substantiation of his book, he wrote: "In the Yi Ching,  [38•1  in the part ’Hsi Tzu Chuan’, it is written: ’That which has no form is called Tao; that which has form is called Chi. Tao appeared out of non-being; first it engendered original matter (Chi) which condensed to become Tai Chi. Then Tai Chi divided into Yin and Yang.’ "  [38•2 

p The sky surrounded the earth, and the earth took a place in the sky; Yin comprised Yang, and Yang comprised Yin. This is why it is said that "the interaction of Yin and Yang is Tao”. Hence "Two engendered three and three engendered all things.” The things that exist in the world and their names, original matter and its laws are embraced (Tao). Since there exist odd and even numbers, just as the multiplication of even numbers by odd numbers produces a variety of different numbers, so the interaction of Yin and Yang together form the variety of all things. Thus, things arose out of original matter, or, in other words, concrete objects appear out of Tao”.

p This primitive system of naive dialectics based on old treatises (the author seeks confirmation of the truth of his conception in the relevant ideas of Lao Tzu and Confucius) was formulated in 1893, at a time when the law of conservation and transformation of energy, cell theory and Darwin’s theory of evolution were already current in Europe.  [38•3 

p Although this and similar treatment of cosmological problems is of undoubted value in that it helps foster a materialist world view, it nonetheless represents gross oversimplification. With rare exceptions, Chinese philosophy between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries suffered 39 from serious weaknesses in the treatment of ontological and epistemological problems.  [39•1 

p Philosophy invariably develops under the influence of the natural sciences. This being so, it is easy to see how the advances in modern European philosophy must be largely ascribed to the great strides made by Western science in such fields as medicine, astronomy, biology, physiology, mathematics and mechanics. In China, on the other hand, in the period we are dealing with, the natural sciences can be said to have marked time and this was bound to have its reflection in the development of philosophy.

p The great Chinese philosopher Tai Chen (1723-1777) provides a perfect illustration of this. Tai Chen was a fine scholar with an extensively ranging mind for his age, a mathematician and an astronomer. Yet it cannot be said that he possessed truly scientific knowledge in the natural sciences and he cannot be counted among the foremost scientists of his age. He took the old traditional concepts and theories at their face value, and was perfectly prepared to accept, for example, that the Sun and the Moon were made of fire and water, heat and moisture, and moved under the influence of Yin and Yang.

p The chief obstacle to the progress in Chinese philosophy, as we have already indicated, was the official feudal ideology of neo-Confucianism. Confucius was a great thinker who examined many questions of major importance in his 40 teaching, such as the social predestination of man, the conditioning of his actions, the criteria for judging human behaviour, and the nature of the relationships between different social groups. But the answers he suggested were not such as to promote the historical development of Chinese society. Confucian doctrine was backward-looking, and primarily concerned with what he called a "golden age" in China’s past. He justified and defended conservative views and outmoded traditions. According to Confucius, the traditions of the wise rulers of the past embodied "the will of heaven”, and these traditions, which he called Li ( ceremony, etiquette) should be preserved and revered.

p Jen, meaning humaneness or perfect humanity was a central concept of the Confucian doctrine. It would be wrong to interpret this as sympathy, or love and respect for others. The term had carried clear class implications and had a strictly defined sphere of application. Only the rulers—- noble men—possessed Jen. "A noble man may not have Jen, but it is impossible for the ordinary man to have Jen."  [40•1  Since Li was the concrete embodiment of the categories of Jen, the call of Confucius and his disciples, especially Mencius, to follow the way of Jen, really boiled down to an appeal for obedience and strict conformity to the social hierarchy. The ideal of Confucius and his followers was that the father should be paternal, the son filial, the ruler should be lordly, and the official official. Every man should keep to his appointed station. The society organised according to these principles should consist of two categories of people, those who work with their “hearts”, that is their minds, and rule, and those appointed by destiny to physical labour to feed those who rule.

p One of the basic principles upon which the social order propagated by Confucianism was based was absolute submission to one’s seniors in age or station. Confucius and his followers thus attached great importance to the concept of Hsiao, or filial piety, insisting that "those who honour their parents and respect their elders, rarely fail to obey their superiors".  [40•2  Thus, Confucianism tried to make use of clan patriarchal traditions to educate people in the spirit of 41 dumb submission to their rulers. Confucius made frequent direct statements to this effect. "Simple people,” he said, "should not reason on affairs of state.” They must be "forced to follow the leaders, but they must not be allowed to be educated".  [41•1  Constant submission and obedience to the ruler (the Son of Heaven), the rule that "the cobbler should stick to his last”, such are the basic principles of Confucianism.

p Although such ideas undoubtedly had a negative effect on the development of Chinese thought, for a long time their influence was limited by the fact that Taoism and Buddhism existed side by side with Confucianism as equally powerful factors. This state of affairs lasted down to the eleventh or the twelfth century when, largely due to the efforts of Chu Hsi, neo-Confucianism, representing a combination of Confucian ethics with certain Taoist and Buddhist tenets was instated as the official ideology of Chinese feudal society.

p Neo-Confucianism established a monopoly over the spiritual life of the people, demanding strict observance of accepted ways of thinking and forms of behaviour. It comprised a system of canons and rules which had to be scrupulously observed and obeyed. It was taught as dogma in all educational establishments, where every pupil was required to learn by heart numerous sayings of Confucius and his disciples as interpreted by Chu Hsi. A purely mechanical knowledge of these sayings served as the basic entry requirement for scholars to the "civil service”. This learning parrot-fashion of Confucian dogmas from generation to generation encouraged by the feudal rulers became a "national tradition”. As a result of such “teaching” methods, every Chinese was to a certain extent Confucianist, not in the sense that he was familiar with Confucian ideas but simply in that he accepted the Confucian prescriptions as something perfectly natural and not to be argued with, as traditions inherited from his ancestors.

p Neo-Confucian scholasticism was bound to exert an important influence on the subsequent development of Chinese philosophy. All that was expected of scholars was completely orthodox commentaries on the works of the great Confucianist sages, and any ideas contradicting neo- 42 Confucianism were severely criticised. This naturally prevented Chinese thinkers from adopting a creative approach to urgent problems of Chinese social and intellectual life. Even progressive Chinese philosophers and socio-political thinkers were forced to resort to the authority of Confucius in order to justify their ideas. Thus, the late nineteenth- century bourgeois reformers (Kang Yu-wei, Liang Chi-chao and others) employed theses from Confucius in propagating the idea of constitutional monarchy.

p It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that European culture and philosophy began to filter into China. Since this process took place against the background of a feudal society, it naturally assumed a rather special character. Borrowings were mainly in the form of Western technical achievements, certain political and social institutions, and some ideas from European bourgeois philosophy, especially positivism, but certainly not Marxism. It must be remembered that China’s introduction to the achievements of European civilisation coincided with the beginning of the country’s colonial enslavement, and that the bearers of Western culture at this period were representatives of imperialist circles, whose interests lay in importing pro-imperialist ideology.

p The prevalence of the traditional approach to the solution of philosophical problems and the fact that science was poorly developed meant that the borrowings by Chinese philosophers of elements of Western civilisation at the end of the last century took the form of a synthesis of Chinese speculative categories and European scientific concepts. Thus, Kang Yu-wei, whom we have already mentioned, associated electricity with Jen, the spiritual principle which the Confucianists regard as being inherent in all things. Yan Fu, a Right-wing bourgeois reformer, who was one of the leading translators of European philosophical works, provided his translations with commentaries in which he attempted to draw parallels between Western socio- philosophical theories and traditional currents of Chinese ancient and medieval socio-political thought, above all Confucianism.

p Thus, one is probably justified in concluding that the modern Chinese philosophers as a whole did not rise above the level of their medieval predecessors. The creation of 43 modern philosophy, by which we mean philosophy on a level with the latest achievements in theoretical knowledge, could not be expected to produce significant results immediately, especially since, as we have seen, neo- Confucianism preserved its dominant role. Chinese philosophy between the seventeenth and the nineteenth century was essentially a modification of the original form of materialism and naive dialectics.

p It was on such theoretical foundations that Mao Tse-tung’s views took shape. Like the rest of his generation, Mao Tsetung received a traditional education, which consisted mainly in the study of Confucian canons and other ancient texts.  [43•1 

p Mao Tse-tung himself admitted in a conversation with the American journalist E. Snow in 1936 during which he recounted his biography that in his youth he had mainly studied idealist philosophy, Confucian canons.

p Nationalist prejudices were strong in the milieu in which Mao Tse-tung conducted his early revolutionary activities. Nationalism is extremely deep-rooted in China, and has an extremely long history.

p For centuries it was a basic principle of Chinese policy, home and foreign, to regard China as the centre of the world. The Emperor was held to be the Son of Heaven, and thus Lord of the Celestial Empire—the whole world and of all its peoples. Accordingly, all the peoples with whom China came into direct contact in one way or another were regarded as subject to her and vassals of the Emperor of China. This view was kept alive by the fact that China had extremely limited political, economic and cultural relations with other countries, and was relatively isolated from most of the outside world. For centuries the Chinese ruling classes plumed themselves on the superiority of the Chinese nation and the unique features of Chinese civilisation, their own special customs and institutions. Such revolutionarydemocratic intellectuals as Sun Yat-sen and Chen Tienhua remarked on this tendency in the official ideology of medieval China to present China as the centre of the world 44 and the Chinese people as a chosen people. Thus, Sun Yatsen wrote: "China thought very highly of her own achievements and looked down on other states. This became a habit and came to be regarded as perfectly natural. As a result, China strove to isolate herself. For this reason, in undertaking any reforms the Chinese relied exclusively on their own experience and means, and made no attempt to borrow anything from others. China came to resemble a solitary desert island cast away. Never having known the advantages of mutual international assistance she has not learnt the art of borrowing the best from others to make up for one’s own shortcomings. The Chinese regard anything they do not know and are incapable of doing as altogether impossible.”  [44•1  As Chen Tien-hua put it: "the Chinese are always boasting what a civilised and highly moral nation they are".  [44•2 

p The general stagnation of Chinese society encouraged the development of an ideology of national Sinocentrism, or Chinese nationalism, which we might call feudal or prebourgeois nationalism.  [44•3 

p The official ideology—Confucianism—promoted a spirit of devotion to tradition among the Chinese people. The ideologists of Chinese feudalism encouraged individual submission to one’s social lot, to the State and to the Emperor, who was represented as fulfilling the noble mission of defending his subjects. These ideologists often presented their own class interests as those of the nation as a whole, and did their utmost to foster distrust towards other peoples and ethnic prejudices. The feudal state used Confucianism as a means of cultivating an exaggerated sense of belonging to a special ethnic group. This naturally produced ethnic prejudices among the masses and gave rise to smug belief in the unique position of the Chinese people, its philosophy and 45 culture, and conformism to the national conservative traditions.

p The socio-economic conditions in feudal China gave rise to certain stereotypes of mass awareness which had the character of ethnic prejudices. A typical example was the view that the Chinese were the most civilised of peoples, and that all other ethnic groups were barbarians. The Chinese were convinced that their own customs and traditions, their own moral taboos, their own concepts of good and evil and their own cultural values were the best in the world.

p When in the latter half of the nineteenth century China was reduced to the status of a colony of the imperialist powers and the Chinese people began to experience a double national yoke, there was a new upsurge of nationalism among various social strata.

p Along with enslavement to European capital, China also found herself having to submit to unprecedented violation of her national customs and traditions, which was “ justified” by reference to the country’s political and social backwardness, and the spiritual inferiority of the Chinese people. It is not hard to imagine what psychological shock the Chinese must have suffered on meeting with this attitude from the European and American colonialists. The Chinese regarded the Europeans as people from another world, since their customs and traditions, their morality and concepts of right and wrong, and their cultural values were quite different from their own. It is not surprising therefore that the hatred of the Chinese towards the Manchurian conquerors should have been extended to the Europeans, who were referred to, among other things, as "foreign devils”. Ethnic prejudices provided fertile soil for the development of nascent bourgeois nationalism.

p Chinese intellectuals of various social convictions at the turn of the century based their ideas for the national rebirth of China not only on the natural right of every people to freedom and independence, but also upon references to China’s glorious past and her unique political and spiritual institutions. While serving the purpose of awakening national awareness and inspiring patriotism among the masses, such references to the past promoted the spread of chauvinistic ideas, since a blind was drawn over the social contradictions which had characterised that past. The Chinese 46 bourgeois revolutionaries of every persuasion carried on propaganda that embodied a call for the rebirth of Chinese science, as being the most advanced in the world, the rebirth of Chinese culture, one of the most ancient cultures in the world, the rebirth of Chinese political institutions, supposedly unsurpassed anywhere, in short the rebirth of "Great China”, the Celestial Kingdom.  [46•1 

p Thus, from the very moment it appeared Chinese bourgeois nationalism had two distinct sides to it—the progressive and the reactionary. The former was associated with the struggle of the masses against Manchurian rule and against the enslavement of China by the imperialist powers. The latter involved the idea of Chinese superiority— a spirit of contempt for all things foreign and a sense of moral superiority over all other countries and peoples. Chinese bourgeois ideologists regarded the peoples of yellow race to be greater than all others and ascribed a special role to the Chinese (Hans), who in time were to establish their hegemony throughout the world.

p This was the view, for example, of the ideologists of reform (Liang Chi-chao, Kang Yu-wei), who were strongly iniluenced by the social-Darwinist theory of national and racial struggle for survival. Convinced of the inevitability of racial conflict, they pressed for the establishment of a pan-Asian union of peoples of the yellow race capable of withstanding the pressure of the white nations.

p The views of the Chinese revolutionary democrats were similar in many respects. Chen Tien-hua, for example, ascribed the success of "people of white race" to the fact that "from birth they feel friendship and love for people of their race and cruelty and hatred towards the people of other races".  [46•2 

p Chen’s associate Tsou Jung expounded the idea of the superiority of the Chinese over the other peoples of yellow race. He wrote as follows: "The first race, the Han race, is quite unique among the peoples of the eastern hemisphere. From China proper, advancing along the banks of the Hwang Ho, they spread in all directions. Our Han race 47 was indeed the only civilising agent in the East from earliest times. The Koreans and the Japanese also developed from the Han race.”  [47•1  Further on he writes: "Although they had no capital, the Chinese (those who had emigrated from China.—M.A., V.G.) surpassed the people of other nationalities thanks to their industriousness. Those who had considerable basic capital began to compete and struggle on the market with large American and European trading firms, and held their own with them. Indeed, they have shown that they have the power to extend the wealth of their people, and can become the masters of the twentieth century and advance our noble Han people.”  [47•2 

p While rightly exposing the rapacious and ruthless policy of the foreign powers acting hand in glove with the mercenary Manchu court, and calling upon the people to oppose them, Chen Tien-hua and Tsou Jung failed to provide a correct interpretation of the situation and indicate proper methods for effective opposition. Since they saw all social contradictions through the prism of national and racial conflicts, they called the people to arms against foreigners in general. Here again we see the influence of the nationalist psychology, whereby the characteristics of the exploiter classes of the oppressor nation (aggression, ruthlessness, and so on) are extended to the whole people, producing a stereotype of that nation. Thus, Tsou Jung referred to the Manchurians as barbarians and shepherds with bestial instincts, and tried to whip up hatred for them. "Let us all as one man rush forward and kill these foreign devils, and kill and take prisoner their families. If the Manchurians help the foreigners kill us, then we must first of all annihilate the Manchurians. If the mercenary officials help the foreigners to kill us, then we must first of all annihilate all these mercenary officials. Let everyone take up swords and only put them down when they have destroyed our enemies!

p “My dear compatriots! Forward, kill! Forward, kill! Forward, kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill our age-old enemies within the country, kill the new enemies that have come to our land, kill our despised traitors, toadying to the foreigners! 48 Kill! Kill! Kill!”  [48•1  It is hard to see what could possibly come of such an appeal but senseless brutality.

p The revolutionary democrats based their claim for China’s right to freedom and independence on the nationalist idea of "Great China”. Tsou Jung wrote: "China has always possessed qualities of mind embracing the universe and glory that has resounded throughout the world. She looked down from above upon other states, and her power held the five continents in awe. She had a territory of two million square li, four hundred million intelligent, talented people, a history of five thousand years, and was ruled by two great emperors and three great rulers. Moreover, our country lies in the temperate zone, the people possess natural intelligence, the land is rich and the rivers bountiful. No other country in the world can boast what we have.”  [48•2  Tsou even goes on to claim that but for the Manchurian invasion it would probably have been the Chinese and not the Western powers that subdued India, Poland, Egypt and Turkey.

p Even that great son of the Chinese people Sun Yat-sen did not entirely escape the influence of bourgeois nationalism. He was unable to transcend his class outlook, and was wont to stress the uniqueness of the Chinese people.

p The reader may feel that we are exaggerating the nationalist errors of the Chinese revolutionaries, both bourgeois and petty-bourgeois, and expecting too much of political leaders who expressed the hopes of social groups which had suffered such monstrous political, economic and spiritual oppression.

p This is by no means the case. It is far from our intention to run down the leaders of the Chinese revolutionary movement at the turn of the century and accuse them of mortal sins. It must be borne in mind that many of the weaknesses from which their political programmes and views suffered were conditioned socially, politically and economically, above all by the unprecedented dual national yoke. Even the most progressive Chinese politicians were unable to free themselves entirely from the chains of bourgeois ideology, since in order to do so they would first have had to recognise the role of the working class and align themselves with 49 it. But we must point out their weaknesses if we are to give an accurate objective picture of the level Chinese social thought was at immediately before the Communist Party came on the scene as a political factor, and show what underlay the ideology of the Chinese bourgeois, petty- bourgeois and peasant revolutionaries, who influenced the theory and practice of many leaders of the Chinese Communist Party and whose followers joined the Party. And this involves examining the question of Chinese nationalism and drawing our own conclusions about it, since, as we have seen, it was an essential element in the ideology of Chinese revolutionaries of various shades and trends.  [49•1 

p We have examined Chinese nationalism at such length for the simple reason that it had a tremendous influence on Mao Tse-tung and the evolution of his views. The question of the role of the great-power ideas propounded by Chinese political leaders at the turn of the century in shaping Mao’s outlook certainly deserves special attention. It must be remembered that Liang Chi-chao, Kang Yu-wei and Sun Yatsen were still alive at the time when Mao began his political activities.

p Nationalism and Sinocentrism became an essential feature of Mao Tse-tung’s outlook and were later reflected in his theoretical and practical activity. In the conversations with E. Snow we have already mentioned, Mao Tse-tung said that after the triumph of the people’s revolution in China, Outer Mongolia, or what is today the Mongolian People’s Republic, would automatically become a part of 50 a Chinese federation. Mao made frequent similar statements after 1949, too, and this standpoint has been reflected in the practical solution of the question of China’s national minorities. In the Chinese People’s Republic the principle of national self-determination has been replaced with the principle of national administrative autonomy. In recent years Mao Tse-tung has been reviving the idea of the racial solidarity of the peoples of Asia and Africa, which even Sun Yat-sen abandoned in his latter years. Mao appeals in his propaganda to the national sentiment of the Chinese, attempting to consolidate Chinese unity on the basis of nationalism. Hostility and distrust towards the national minority groups in China is once more being fomented. Thus, Chinese propaganda has begun presenting Ulanfu, a Mongolian who prior to the Ninth Congress was one of the few representatives of the national minorities in the Central Committee, as a snake cowering beneath the blows of giants armed with submachine-guns and copies of Quotations from Chairman Mao.  [50•1  In this way a sense of national exclusiveness is being cultivated among the Chinese and a sense of ethnic and national inferiority is being produced among China’s other nationalities.

p Lenin rightly pointed out that "there is nothing resembling ‘sectarianism’ in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound, petrified doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the high road of the development of world civilisation".  [50•2  Maoist “philosophy”, as distinct from Marxism- Leninism arose mainly on a narrow, national, Chinese basis, separate from the development of world philosophy.

p It should be noted that in the first quarter of the present century the works of such classics of world philosophy as Bacon, Locke, Holbach, Kant, Hegel and Feuerbach had not yet been translated into Chinese. It was chiefly with the works of positivists and pragmatists such as Compte, Spencer, Russell, Dewey and James that the Chinese public ( including Mao Tse-tung) were able to acquaint themselves through translations at that time.

p In the early years of his revolutionary activities Mao Tsetung was strongly attracted to anarchist ideas (especially 51 the works of Bakunin and Kropotkin), and has never really managed to free himself from their influence.

p Mao had his first introduction to anarchist ideas while studying at the pedagogical institute, and the enthusiasm with which he embraced them was to last a long time. He continued to be very much under their spell when he went to Peking, and he admitted to E. Snow that he favoured many of the anarchist proposals at that time.  [51•1  Emi Hsiao, a close friend of Mao’s in those days, also mentions that Mao was at that time "strongly influenced by anarchist ideas”. Mao himself confessed that in 1919 he had tried to organise a movement in Hunan for the “independence” of Hunan. With a group of young anarchists from the town of Changsha, he organised a demonstration with the slogans "For the independence of the individual provinces from the Peking government" and "For the introduction of democratic constitutions in every province”. In the case of Mao Tsetung, anarchist views were combined with elements of the bourgeois-democratic outlook, expressed in the fact that he wanted autonomous provinces to be incorporated in a federation, in "the idea of United Autonomous States of China".  [51•2 

p It is interesting to note how in organising the Hungweiping movement during the "cultural revolution”, Mao Tsetung drew on the anarchist experience of his youth, although he has rejected some of it today. The anarchist idea of destroying centralised state authority expressed in the Hungweiping movement as “polycentrism” and local separatism, no longer suits Mao now, since it threatens to undermine his own dictatorship. But in his younger days Mao thought otherwise.

p Mao Tse-tung was also strongly influenced by the ideology of the peasant movements of medieval China, in particular the T’ai P’ing rebellion.

p Mao’s favourite heroes were Shih Huang Ti, the founder of the first Chinese Empire (3rd. c. B.C.), Liu Pang, founder of the Han Dynasty (3rd. c. B.C.), T’ang Tai Tsung, the first Emperor of the T’ang Dynasty (7th c. A.D.), Jenghiz Khan (12-13th c.), and Chu Yiian-chang (14th c.), leader 52 of a peasant revolt and founder of the Ming Dynasty. The figures he admired most in foreign history were Julius Caesar, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Napoleon.  [52•1 

p These favourite heroes are more than a passing passion of Mao’s youth, they are a reflection of his own dictatorial nature. He has frequently referred to them in later years, and is wont to compare himself to Shih Huang Ti. Thus, in a speech at the second session of the Eighth Congress of the CPC in May 1958 which was published by the Hungweipings, Mao declared: "I maintain that we are stronger than Shih Huang Ti. He sent 460 people to their graves, while we have disposed of 46,000, a hundred times more than Shih Huang Ti. I once had a conversation with some democrats. They call us Shih Huang Ti, or despots. On the whole we accept their accusation.. . .”

p Here is another example from the same collection of hitherto unpublished speeches by Mao Tse-tung. Mao tells his nephew: "If you read a lot of books, you’ll never be emperor,” and adds, "If you look at history you can see that none of the people who were famous for their wisdom and knowledge were outstanding figures.”

p Siao-yu, Mao’s friend and fellow student at the pedagogical institute in Changsha, also testifies to this side of Mao’s character. In his book Mao Tse-tung and I Were Beggars, he writes that Mao was already dreaming at that time of becoming another Liu Pang, a peasant who became Emperor. He reports Mao as saying to him: "Liu Pang was the first commoner in history to become Emperor... a successful revolutionist who succeeded in overthrowing the Ch’ing despot... he was founder of the Han Dynasty. ..” and ”. . .should be considered to be a great hero!”

p Siao-yu disagreed, arguing that Liu Pang was "a cruel despot. .. treacherous and absolutely devoid of human sentiment. ... Remember the friends and generals who risked their lives fighting for him? When his armies were successful, these men became famous leaders and he became afraid that one or another of them might try to usurp his throne; so he had them all killed.”

p Mao, however, hotly defended the “honour” of Liu Pang. "But if he had not killed them, his throne would have been 53 insecure and he probably wouldn’t have lasted long as Emperor.”  [53•1 

p The practice and rituals of the cult of Mao Tse-tung introduced during the "cultural revolution" suggest that the Napoleonic dreams of his youth have become the cornerstone of Mao’s political views.

p It is highly significant that whenever he speaks of China’s future or of the services of the Chinese revolutionaries, Mao can think of nothing better than to compare their achievements to the activities of the ancient Chinese emperors Shih Huang Ti, Han Wu-ti and T’ang Tai Tsung, and Jenghiz Khan the conqueror.

p Analysis of Mao Tse-tung’s political views also shows him to be strongly influenced by the legist political system, a Chinese brand of Macchiavellianism and Jesuitism.  [53•2 

Thus, the ideological basis of Maoist philosophy is formed by concepts that are either anachronistic or reactionary in their socio-political essence.

54

<			>
<<			>>
<<<	INTRODUCTION -- THE MAOIST MYSTIQUE	CHAPTER II -- ON MARXIST PHRASEOLOGY IN THE WORKS OF MAO TSE-TUNG	>>>

http://leninist.biz/en/1971/PVMT176/1-Social-Ideological.Origins.of.Mao.Tse-Tungs.Outlook	1,340 titles  •  155 online
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z	Created= 2008 May 25
At@ Leninist . Biz ... we mean Business !	leninistbiz Loaded=