Ge Jianxiong: On the Political Mechanism of the Spread of New Culture in China

It has been almost 70 years since the May Fourth Movement took place. The reason why we commemorate the May Fourth Movement today is, of course, not only to carry forward the fearless patriotic spirit displayed by the movement itself, but more importantly, to fully affirm the historical significance of the spread of the new trend of thought and culture around May 4, 1919, to carry forward the democratic and scientific spirit represented by this new trend of thought and culture, and to promote the process of democratization and scientificization in China.

However, in commemorating the May Fourth Movement, we have to painfully face the reality that although the regime has changed several times, the system has been fundamentally changed, production has made great progress, and the material conditions have been considerably improved, China is still quite far from the goal of democracy and science; while the remnants of feudal autocracy are still quite serious, and the phenomena of ignorance and backwardness can be seen everywhere, and the "Cultural Revolution" that ended more than 10 years ago The wounds left behind are far from healing, and not only often cause palpitations and flutters in people's hearts, but also induce new inflammation and ulcers from time to time. As a result, some gentlemen found a reason for the attack: the spirit of the May Fourth Movement was not democracy and science, but a brutal and comprehensive criticism of traditional culture, which interrupted China's fine traditions and eventually led to the "Cultural Revolution." Some gentlemen also raised the following question: Since the new culture of democracy and science was disseminated as early as the May Fourth Movement, why has it not been possible to realize it in China today? Doesn't this mean that this new culture is not suited to China's national conditions? Friends who are worried about the country and the people also feel that although democracy is a beautiful ideal, it cannot solve the urgent task of today's China, so they turn to the new authoritarianism and other weapons.

This short article only wants to do a little historical investigation and analysis of the political mechanism of the spread of new culture in China, hoping to help us find the reasons for the current situation in China.

Looking back at history, it is not difficult for us to see that since ancient times, the spread of any new culture has been inseparable from the support of political forces

In 307 BCE, the Wuling King of Zhao decided to learn from the strengths of the northern nomads and implement two changes—the hufu and the cavalry archery—to improve the combat effectiveness of his army. However, such a not complicated reform was unanimously opposed, first the ministers were unwilling, then his uncle did not accept the Hu Fu given, and the ministers Zhao Wen, Zhao Zao, Zhou Shao, and Zhao Jun collectively discouraged it. The reason for the opposition was that the people of "China" (i.e., the Central Plains) were more clever than the "barbarians", so why did they oppose the "barbarians"? If they do not change, they will live very well, so what should they do? With the support of his advisers, King Wuling personally persuaded his uncle to take the lead in putting on the Hufu and refuted the ministers' objections one by one, so that this reform could be carried out. Soon it was a great success, and Zhao not only defeated the other Central Plains princes, but also gained the upper hand in the war with the nomads, seizing large tracts of land. As a result, various countries followed suit, and Hufu cavalry became the general military uniform and main means of warfare of the Chinese people in the Central Plains, and it was not until the 19th century that foreign guns and foreign artillery were imported that there was a fundamental change.

Although this is only a change in material culture, it is a major action of the Chinese people in the Central Plains to absorb foreign culture. The fundamental reason for the rapid spread of this new material culture was, of course, its own superiority, but the promotion of political power by King Wuling of Zhao and the administrative orders made by other princes in order to increase their fighting strength were undoubtedly important conditions. At that time, it was not only the Zhao State that had the opportunity to discover the superiority of Hufu cavalry archery, but at least the Qin, Zhongshan, Yan, Han and other countries, which were also in direct contact with the nomads; But the forces opposing the change are so strong that they would certainly not succeed if they were not initiated by a powerful monarch like the Martial Spirit King. King Zhao Wuling was finally trapped in the Dune Palace alone for more than three months and starved to death, although the direct cause was the power struggle between his sons, but judging from the fact that none of the people around him were willing to accompany him, he was not popular at that time.

This is true of material culture, and even more so is spiritual culture.

Confucianism was only one of many doctrines for a long time, and it did not occupy a dominant position, nor did it receive the same importance from rulers as later generations of Confucian disciples boasted. Needless to say, Qin Shi Huang's book burning pit Confucianism, Liu Bang also used Confucianism's hat as a urinal, and scolded Confucianism without moving. In the early years of Emperor Wu, Empress Dowager Dou, who believed in Huang Lao's learning, in order to express her dissatisfaction with Confucianism and Confucianism, actually ordered a Confucian student to enter the animal pen to fight with wild boars. Although Emperor Wu had already claimed to "overthrow the hundred schools of thought and respect Confucianism alone", the emperor's personal likes and dislikes still played a great role in the fate of Confucianism. Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty attached great importance to the rule of law, advocated "overlordship and miscellaneous", not only reused "grammar officials", but also regarded the prince (Yuan Emperor), who believed in Confucianism, as the source of the future corruption of the Han Dynasty, and almost abolished him. After the prince became the emperor, Confucianism became popular, and Confucianism was also requisitioned one after another, entrusted with important tasks, and served as prime ministers one after another. After the Eastern Han Dynasty, although Confucianism became more and more dominant, it still flourished and declined with the change of fashion among the emperor and the majority of the ruling class. Dr. Wei Jinshi advocated Qing talk about metaphysics, and some people were dissolute and cynical, which made Confucianism greatly affected when Lao Zhuang's doctrine prevailed. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, most of the people from the emperor and below believed in Buddhism, and the influence of Buddhism once overwhelmed Confucianism. The emperor of the Tang Dynasty regarded Laozi as his ancestor and called him Emperor Xuanyuan, so the status of Taoism rose sharply. At one time, it formed a situation of standing side by side with Confucianism and Buddhism. And in the era of Emperor Buddha, people like Han Yu who adhered to the orthodox position of Confucianism were doomed to bad luck. Therefore, although Confucianism has always been a major ideological culture in Chinese society, it was only after the Song Dynasty that real stability prevailed. An important reason is that the ruling class has finally chosen this ideological weapon and has sanctified, fixed and legalized it with political force.

It should be admitted that Confucianism eventually achieved dominance because it adapted to the needs of China's small peasant society and to the needs of the rulers. But the millennia that elapsed between its emergence as a dominant school of thought and its overriding status, with several major repetitions in between, were clearly the result of the influence of political forces, especially the choices of the supreme ruler. Of course, when the ruling class embraced Buddhism and Taoism, there was also stability and progress in Chinese society, and there was even unprecedented economic and cultural prosperity. Moreover, even after the Song Dynasty, the supreme rulers did not all follow Confucianism. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, although the superficial or official culture was still flaunted by Confucianism, the deep or folk culture had already changed. However, the supremacy of Confucianism was maintained until the end of the Qing Dynasty, undoubtedly because political forces and traditional ideas extended its lifespan, and the former played a greater role.

This can also be attested to by the spread of Buddhism in China. Buddhism is a foreign culture that is in many ways alien to traditional Chinese Confucianism and Taoism. Therefore, at the beginning of the spread of Buddhism in China, it was fiercely attacked by Confucianism and Taoism, and Taoists also made up the myth of "Lao Tzu Huahu" to belittle the status of Buddhism. Therefore, from the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Western Jin Dynasty, Buddhism did not have any great influence. But once Buddhism gained the faith of the supreme ruler, the situation changed radically, driven by the coercion of political forces. The first was the use of political means to affirm the legitimacy of Buddhist rituals, such as the majority of emperors in the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties who favored that monks could not worship their parents and the emperor. The second is the use of violence to suppress the exposure and criticism of Buddhism, such as the Southern Dynasty Liang Fan Zhen published the "Theory of Divine Destruction" that refuted the Buddhist theory of the immortality of God, and refuted all opponents at the debate presided over by Xiao Zixian, but Xiao Yan, Emperor Wu of Liang, ruled that Fan Zhen violated the scriptures, forbade him to express his opinions again, and exiled him to Guangzhou. In addition, the huge financial resources of the state were mobilized to build temples, grottoes, and statues on a large scale, and an astonishing number of Buddhist buildings and facilities appeared in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, most of which were built by the state without compensation; the emperor and the aristocratic bureaucracy also directly gave large amounts of alms to monks, nuns, and Buddhist monasteries, so that the monks and nuns formed an interest group that could influence the entire society. Finally, the state also gave the greatest privileges to monks, nuns and Buddhist monasteries in terms of taxation policy, monks and nuns and their servants could not bear the burden of state servitude, and Buddhist monasteries could not pay taxes on their lands, which was undoubtedly a great attraction for the poor people who wanted to escape the burden of taxation. In this way, Buddhism, a purely foreign culture, once achieved an overwhelming advantage in Chinese society. Similarly, if the supreme ruler used political means to attack Buddhism, it would cause extremely heavy losses. Tang Wuzong ordered the abolition of Buddhism, demolished more than 40,000 Buddhist temples in the mountains at once, and returned 100,000 lay monks. In the fifth year of Huichang (845), it was stipulated that except for the capital and the first-class political region, a total of 40 temples could be retained, and the rest were all demolished, and four imperial historians were also sent to inspect and supervise. Even the Japanese monk Yuan Ren and Western monks who were in the Tang Dynasty at the time could only apply for a return to the world before they were allowed to return to China. For a while, the Buddhist temple was swept away, and there were few Buddhists.

This is true of Buddhism, and so is the spread of Christianity in China.

For example, Christianity is more attractive than Buddhism and Taoism to intellectuals and city dwellers who come into contact with Western civilization, and Buddhism is more acceptable to the scholars and scholars after combining it with traditional Chinese culture to form Zen Buddhism. However, since China has been an authoritarian country for generations, political power often played a decisive role in the spread of foreign culture, especially in its early years. In other words, the spread of the new culture must find an appropriate political mechanism. This is because under authoritarian rule, once the culture advocated by the supreme ruler is combined with power, it will become a politicized and legalized culture, and the challenge and criticism of this fashionable culture will inevitably lead to political pressure and legal sanctions, which can be found in the history of China. Without the tolerance and acquiescence of the rulers, it is impossible for foreign cultures and newly emerging cultures to gain the opportunity to show their superiority, still less to perfect and adjust themselves according to reality. In fact, there have been many times when the spread of foreign cultures and new cultures has only taken advantage of the momentary negligence of the supreme ruler and a certain special need, and once these conditions have become a thing of the past, their spread has been banned. This is not at all the same as the liberal cultural and academic competition in a democratic society. Therefore, under the special conditions of an authoritarian society, the social value of a culture cannot be judged simply by whether it can spread smoothly, nor can it be determined solely by the actual status achieved by the culture over a certain period of time (which can sometimes be as long as more than 100 or hundreds of years).

Looking back at modern history from this viewpoint, it is not difficult to find that the spread of new culture before and after the May Fourth Movement never won the support of the necessary political forces

The new culture in a broad sense should include both material and spiritual aspects, and should be traced back to the export of Western material civilization to China before the May Fourth Movement.

Although the supreme rulers of the Qing Dynasty had long enjoyed Western chiming bells, woolen velvet and spices, and although the far-sighted and pragmatic Kangxi Emperor had already introduced and applied Western calendar, mathematics and surveying and mapping techniques, fundamentally speaking, they always did not recognize the advanced material civilization of the West and the necessity of China to introduce it, which was most clearly expressed in the arrogant letter of the Qianlong Emperor in 1793 to King George III of England: " In fact, the Celestial Dynasty is far away, the kings of all nations, all kinds of valuable things, all kinds of precious things, all kinds of galloping and collecting, everything. However, the material barrier is still easy to break, and once opium becomes the daily necessities of a part of the ruling class, this kind of "foreign medicine" will flood into the great powers of the Celestial Empire; once bows, arrows, and spears are really no match for foreign guns and cannons, "the skills of the masters" will become a policy that the rulers are willing to accept. By the late Qing Dynasty, Western material civilization had been widely used in China, and telegraphs, railways, guns, and warships had become indispensable means for rulers. It can be said that there are generally no direct political obstacles to the introduction of Western material civilization, so the speed of introduction at this stage is relatively fast, and the effect is also relatively significant.

However, in terms of spiritual culture, it is very different, the feudal rulers will never allow the import of new ideas and new cultures from the West, and China's traditional culture has also played a rather stubborn role in resisting. China's advanced intellectuals were the first to see the power of Western civilization and sought weapons to save the country. Although their specific goals are not the same, and sometimes even diathetically opposed: constitutional monarchy, hypothetical republic, democracy, British, American, Japanese, the ultimate goal they pursue is the essence of Western civilization – democracy, freedom, and equality. Even in terms of their specific goals, however limited they may seem today, they are more advanced than China's realities at the time. The ideas of democracy, liberty and equality were of course incompatible with absolute monarchy, and were therefore denounced as heresy by the rulers from the outset. Needless to say, even the more tolerant and enlightened people find it difficult to accept the fact that there is a society in the world that is more perfect than the time of Yao Shun, and such a society has appeared in the state of Yidi. That is to say, although the West can be accepted in terms of material civilization or in some specific aspects of spiritual civilization, the ontological status of the middle school, that is, the traditional Chinese culture, will never be allowed to change in the slightest. The political implication of this principle is that China's absolute monarchy, although it can be reformed in some way, is fundamentally unshakable.

If the Qing Empire was still in its heyday, and its political power could have banned or stifled the spread of these new ideas, just as the Qianlong Emperor had easily sent missionaries away, then in the dying phase of the empire, it was powerless. In addition, it is no longer possible to close the country to the outside world, and the political influence of the Western powers will inevitably have an effect. This has given Western ideology and culture a special opportunity in China to avoid the fate of stillbirth.

The main reasons for this particular opportunity are:

First, with the decline of the central power, local power has gradually become stronger. The suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom cost the Qing government at least two major costs—the Han Chinese replaced the Manchus as senior commanders in direct command of the army, and the provincial governors gradually became powerful men who held all power in the province. This enabled some Han military and political dignitaries and some provinces with huge financial resources to exert influence and pressure on the central power, and to a certain extent to adopt measures different from those of the central power, while the imperial court had to have some scruples and exercise limited tolerance. This political disunity has given rise to opportunities for new cultures. Those who are banned in Beijing can publicize it publicly in the provincial capital, and if they are untenable in this province, they can find a foothold in that province.

Second, the imperialist powers' concessions and spheres of influence in China became a state within a state that was not controlled by the Qing government. On the one hand, out of their own long-term interests, the foreign powers actively influenced and sheltered some forces and figures who admired Western culture, and on the other hand, the concessions also provided better conditions for the spread of new culture than in the areas ruled by the Qing Dynasty. Although this has inevitably marked all kinds of new cultures with the marks of different powers, and has also caused China's new wave figures to have unrealistic illusions about the Western powers, the positive role played by them objectively should still be recognized.

Thirdly, in order to avoid the fate of annihilation, the supreme ruling circles had to gradually adopt reformist measures, which were accelerated as the situation deteriorated. Of course, the rulers' purpose in implementing the "New Deal" was only to maintain the Qing Dynasty's rule forever, but these limited New Policies also legitimized the spread of the new culture to a certain extent. Moreover, contradictions and struggles have arisen within the supreme ruling circles, which, regardless of their outcome, objectively become an opportunity for reformers and new ideas to exert a national impact.

Under such special conditions, on the one hand, the spread of Western culture in China has expanded, the speed has accelerated, and certain achievements have been achieved, especially in the coastal areas, big cities, young intellectuals, and industrial and commercial owners; on the other hand, in order to survive in China, they have adopted the method of catering to the Chinese and everything is "ancient" in China This means of borrowing some traditional Chinese concepts or selecting certain parts that are most likely to be effective in China, so it has a tendency to be pragmatic and one-sided from the beginning.

In the years between the Xinhai Revolution and the outbreak of the May Fourth Movement, the first two of these three factors have not fundamentally changed, but the degree has been very different. China nominally has a unified central government, but in reality it is often anarchic. The nominal central government became the target of warlords of various factions, with four presidents and eighteen prime ministers in eight years, with the shortest prime minister serving only one week. Moreover, the provinces that the government can actually govern are often very limited, and sometimes the government decrees do not leave the city of Beijing. Local warlords became the supreme rulers of one or more provinces, nominally attached to the factions controlling the center, and often flaunted the banners of "independence of × provinces", "autonomy of × provinces", and "autonomy of inter-provinces". China is actually in a state of division. Most of the imperialist countries are busy preparing for war and repartitioning the world after the war, and their direct aggression against China is at a low ebb, their specific policies have changed, and the channels for Western civilization to import China have become more wide. But as the competition between the imperialist camps became more open and the scourge caused by the world war expanded, the other side of Western civilization was also exposed to the eyes of the Chinese. At the same time, various schools of thought in the West are looking for a market in China through various channels.

The third factor has changed because of the change of dynasty. With the establishment of the Republic of China, the "New Deal" has become, at least in theory, the system and law of the state. Especially after the defeat of Yuan Shikai's imperial system and the crushing of Zhang Xun's short-lived restoration, the republican form of government has become the crown of honor and the capital of various factions of warlords. In order to maintain the image of a republic, rulers can no longer openly prohibit the spread of new cultures, but can only find excuses to ban specific elements of them. To a certain extent, the new laws and educational, press, and publishing institutions have provided relatively free conditions for academic research, education, speech, association, publication, and propaganda. The rulers are either too busy with the struggle for power to take care of words and deeds that have nothing to do with their immediate immediate interests, or they try to find a weapon that can be used by them in the "new learning", and most of them adopt a tolerant attitude.

With such conditions, a golden age of unprecedented prosperity has emerged in China's ideological and cultural circles. China's progress-seeking intellectuals have introduced, studied, compared, criticized, and absorbed all aspects and schools of Western thought and culture more comprehensively than ever before, and have also made more comprehensive and fierce criticisms of traditional Chinese culture than ever before. In the midst of this, there were all kinds of ideas that seem very naïve and ridiculous, excessively brutal, and incomparably broad, and the participants also contained various elements, and later adopted completely different attitudes towards their respective remarks, but it should be admitted that the dominant spirit that gradually formed among them was to recognize the essence of modern Western civilization -- science and democracy, and to affirm them as spiritual weapons for transforming the old China and building a new China.

However, this golden age was largely confined to the debate or elaboration of ideological theories, and at most some rather rough assumptions, and had not yet formed a concrete implementation plan, let alone had the opportunity to stand the test of practice. Therefore, even the most brilliant thinkers and theoreticians among them inevitably left a mistake, and the same slogan or the same theory later developed into very different schools. And even such "talk on paper" did not last long, because the favourable conditions created by the loosening of control by the political division of reactionary rule were rather limited and temporary. In China, however, there was no political force that was willing and able to accept the path of science and democracy chosen by China's outstanding intellectuals.

Of course, the destitute Beiyang warlords would not be willing, and neither did the revolutionary government in the south, which was under special conditions. From the very beginning, Chiang Kai-shek aimed at the dictatorship of one party, one faction, and one person, took the elimination of dissidents as his own responsibility, and regarded himself as a natural "political discipliner," which always ran counter to the direction of democracy. Therefore, although there were healthy forces within the Kuomintang that advocated democracy, the Kuomintang government was not without achievements in the first ten years of the war, but at best it could only play a partial role. Naturally, we should not be harsh on the Communist Party of China, which is in the stage of seizing power mainly by violent means, and although democracy is not useless in the long-term military and political life-and-death struggle, it is more of a means and a strategy.

The establishment of the People's Republic of China should be an opportunity for the Communist Party of China to practice democracy. In response to the doubts and concerns of people outside the party about the CCP after it came to power, Mao Zedong explained on more than one occasion that an important measure to prevent the CCP from becoming corrupt after it came to power was to practice democracy. Judging from the CPC's policies toward democratic parties, non-party personages, and intellectuals in the early 50s, it also shows that the party attaches importance to democracy. However, from the very beginning, there were two one-sided prerequisites in the party's understanding of democracy: one was to regard democracy as a means, and the other was to emphasize the class nature of democracy, that is, there was bourgeois democracy and proletarian democracy. The former is only a critique of distorted facts, and an unrealistic glorification of the latter (which is actually the Soviet Stalinist model). By 1957, this limited democratic policy had ceased to be implemented.

Science in the technical sense is something that most political forces are happy to accept, but science in the conceptual sense, especially science on a par with democracy, has a similar fate to democracy.

From the introduction of the new Western culture to China before the May Fourth Movement until the Cultural Revolution, no political force in China that held state power was truly and actively supporting the new culture. And the core of the new culture, democracy and science, has never been faithfully practiced by any political party or government. Therefore, it would be unfair to doubt the denial of this objective solely on the basis of what has been achieved. Democracy and science should be allowed to practice in China. At this time, we should:

Efforts should be made to promote political reform and actively practice democracy in stages, at different levels, and in different regions

As mentioned earlier, the support of political forces is an important condition for the practice of democracy, and it is even more decisive at present. Is this a failure to take into account the national conditions and the economic and cultural conditions? Is it a one-sided exaggeration of the role of political power? No. On the contrary, this is precisely based on China's reality.

The position of the Communist Party of China as the sole ruling party in China has been formed by history. The experience of the past 10 years of reform has fully proved that only when the CPC implements the correct line and exercises correct political leadership can China's economic reform be effective and political reform be implemented. At present, without the leadership and support of the Chinese Communist Party, it is absolutely impossible to practice democracy in China. If it were not for the Third Plenary Session of the 11 th CPC Central Committee, would it have been possible for China to freely discuss democracy? Would there have been such elites who are active in the ideological and cultural circles today?

We should have a comprehensive understanding of China's national conditions, looking at the overall situation and the average, as well as the specific conditions in different regions and at different levels. It is true that China is very poor, and according to the statistics just released, the per capita output value and national income only exceeded 1,000 yuan last year, but the development is uneven, and the level of Shanghai and other large cities, coastal areas, and developed areas is much higher than the average. If we say that the economy is a condition for the practice of democracy, can it be said that these regions are also not qualified to practice democracy? Do we have to wait until the whole country has reached a certain level of yuan before implementing it at the same time?

Although China's education is backward, the people's education level is very low, and there are more than 200 million illiterates, China already has a large contingent of intellectuals. If it is said that the level of education is the condition for the practice of democracy, then why can't it be practiced first among the intellectuals who already have the conditions? Do we have to wait for the more than 200 million people to take off the hat of illiteracy or reach the level of middle school before enjoying it together? Isn't the Chinese Academy of Sciences and universities still not having enough cultural level for practicing democracy?

Of course, China has considerable difficulties, but how have international and domestic conditions ever been so favorable in history? If such conditions cannot yet be used to talk about democracy, we must wait until the initial stage has passed to say that we will have to talk about it? Taking a step back, even if it is not possible to achieve democracy at other levels, there will always be no difficulty in practicing democracy at the highest level of the party and the state -- the party congresses and the people's congresses!

It must be pointed out, however, that national conditions can only explain history and the present situation, and must not be used to limit the future, still less can they be used as an excuse to hinder the trend of history. I remember that when the prostrations were abolished, one of the reasons given by the opponents was also China's national conditions -- Which of the Chinese, from the emperor to the common people, did not kneel?

It should be emphasized that scholars should have an academic conscience and seek truth from facts when explaining the national conditions to party and government leaders and the people, instead of one-sidedly highlighting certain aspects in order to cater to certain needs. When some people hear that there is any weakness in the national character of the Chinese, they will scold others for being "arrogant and self-deprecating"; but when it comes to democracy, they also conclude that the Chinese do not deserve it. The front and back are like two people. This kind of person should put a question mark on the "national conditions" mentioned by such people.

To advocate the practice of democracy in stages, at different levels, and in different regions is to proceed from the reality of the mainland, and the key is to actively practice it and to practice it in places and times where the basic conditions are already in place. Those who practice first are not only the first to enjoy, but also to provide experiments, accumulate experience, and play an exemplary and promoting role for those who are later to implement. For example, in areas where compulsory education has been implemented, it is stipulated that illiterate people within a certain age have no right to vote, and that people's deputies at all levels should have corresponding academic qualifications, which will not only strengthen the democratic foundation of the people's congresses, but also promote local education.

It's time to get moving.

Originally published in Fudan Journal (Social Science Edition), No. 3, 1989