Education in Communist China

R.F. Price

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138310094
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351387170
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book, first published in 1970 and revised in 1975, lays out the background to the Chinese educational system and attempts of the communist leadership to reform the school system. It analyses the educational implications of the Cultural Revolution and the difficulties Mao faced in his attempts to introduce new educational policies. This book forms a valuable case study in the reform of education.

1

Educational aims and the thoughts of Mao Ze-dong

The Cultural Revolution of 1966

In the autumn of 1965, in the sixteenth year of the People’s Republic of China, the first verbal hand-grenades were thrown in what was to become known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (wuchan-jieji wenhua da geming). The Shanghai Literary Gazette published on 10 November an attack on the writer and vice-mayor of Peking, Wu Han, which was reprinted by the Liberation Army Daily on 29 November, and by the People’s Daily on the 30th. In the spring of 1966 this was widened into an attack on various writers and historians. Guided and stimulated by articles and editorials in the Liberation Army Daily, the People’s Daily and Red Flag, what at first appeared to be just another rectification campaign moved, in the form of posters, on to the walls of the colleges and schools, and finally into the streets in the form of massive demonstrations in July 1966.

The struggle was not something which suddenly began in 1965. Its roots, uncovered in the course of the movement, go back through the 1950s to Yan’an (Yenan). Differences of emphasis which could co-exist at one period gradually accumulated until open struggle became necessary if one trend was not to be submerged.

During the two confused years which followed it became clear that education in its widest sense was central to the struggle being waged between Mao Ze-dong and his supporters, and that often shadowy ‘handful of people in the Party taking the capitalist road’. While the debate did not raise any essentially new issues, it posed certain old ones in a particularly sharp manner and forced people to take a firm stand on one side or the other. At the same time it threw a clearer light on the events of the previous decade and a half during which the CCP had tried to transform the educational system of China to meet the new needs.

The importance of education was brought out in numerous articles during the Cultural Revolution. Very early on, in the editorial for 18 April 1966 the Liberation Army Daily wrote: ‘we must … integrate ourselves with the workers, peasants and soldiers, remould our thinking, raise the level of our political consciousness and whole-heartedly serve all the people of China and of the world, with no thought of fame or profit, and without fear of hardship or death’ (CR docs. 2, vol. 1, p. 16). Here were Mao’s two main ideas: integration with the working people and moral-political education. On 6 June 1966 the Liberation Army Daily published a long article in which it amplified these points while outlining what the Cultural Revolution was about. ‘Its purpose’, it said, ‘is not only to demolish all the old ideology and culture … but also to create and cultivate among the masses an entirely new, proletarian ideology and culture, and entirely new proletarian customs and habits.’ (CR docs. 2, vol. 5, p. 23). The emphasis had by then moved from the intelligentsia, from historians and playwrights, to the ‘masses’. Official pronouncement on the schools came later, in the Sixteen Points adopted by the CC CCP on 8 August 1966 as guidelines for the conduct of the Cultural Revolution. Point 10 read:

In the great proletarian cultural revolution a most important task is to transform the old educational system and the old principles and methods of teaching.

In this great cultural revolution, the phenomenon of our schools being dominated by bourgeois intellectuals must be completely changed.

In every kind of school we must apply thoroughly the policy advanced by Comrade Mao Ze-dong of education serving proletarian politics and education being combined with productive labour, so as to enable those receiving an education to develop morally, intellectually and physically and to become workers with both socialist consciousness and culture.

The period of schooling should be shortened. Courses should be fewer and better. The teaching material should be thoroughly transformed, in some cases beginning with simplifying complicated material. While their main task is to study, students should also learn other things. That is to say, in addition to their studies they should also learn industrial work, farming and military affairs, and take part in the struggles of the cultural revolution to criticize the bourgeoisie as these struggles occur. (CR docs. 3, pp. 9–10).

In line with Mao Ze-dong’s dictum that it is necessary to destroy the old before one begins to construct the new, most of the discussion has been in negative terms, in terms of what Mao’s supporters are against. What they are for is more difficult to grasp in concrete terms. It has often been expressed in terms of ‘serving the people’ and ‘eliminating self’. Perhaps it could not have been more specific because it is rather a question of the way in which things are done than what should be done which often divides the protagonists. Mao is deeply concerned with human relations, with sociology rather than economics. For example, his support for the rural people’s communes is more for what they do to develop human co-operation than because he expects them to develop agricultural output ‘faster, better and more economically’, though he expects them to do that too, in the end.

The opposition to Mao. Ze-dong and his policies which became identified as the ‘Liu Shao-qi line’ almost certainly included a number of different ‘oppositions’. The extent to which these were organized, and to what extent different members really held the views attributed to them is difficult to determine. Almost all the materials available for study come from sources which claim to be supporting Mao Ze-dong. Nevertheless, the general policy of those opposed to Mao was quite clear. Their main belief was in government by the expert, by a highly trained and privileged group who would occupy the Party and managerial positions. Work was to be done by administrative decision, with little emphasis on involving those who were to carry out the decisions. Mao’s attempts to get the managerial and technical personnel to take part in manual labour were regarded as largely a waste of valuable time and training. In the school system this policy was represented by special schools for the children of officials, and long and highly selective courses in the universities and colleges.

The repeated accusation that the opposition was attempting to restore capitalism refers to this differentiation of the ruling group from the mass of workers and peasants. While to the European observer life might have appeared to be uniformly austere, a closer look revealed countless ways in which those holding high office were able to obtain privileges. The Maoist argument is that such small privileges lead to a differentiation of interests and a gradual development of a new exploiting class. It is in this connection that one should read the repeated attacks on the USSR, where Mao’s group sees this process already far advanced.

Support for the policy of government by the expert, and emphasis on individual material incentives is generally condemned under the term ‘revisionism’. But in the field of education similar attitudes are attacked as ‘bourgeois’. One should not be misled by the endless clichés into thinking that the accusations have no substance.

It is important to note that this is a struggle within the Communist Party, between groups who agree on a number of fundamental questions, such as the development of co-operation in farming and trade, and on the public ownership of industry. But the deep division on the way in which government should be carried out is connected with questions like the rate of change-over from private to public ownership, the degree of centralization of this or that sphere of the economy, and the whole sphere of general and specialist education.

The ideas behind the educational policies of the ‘bourgeois academics’ are familiar to specialists in education everywhere. But the Thoughts of Mao Ze-dong require more detailed consideration if current attempts to reform Chinese education are to be understood.

The Thoughts of Mao Ze-dong

During the Cultural Revolution the study of the works of Mao Ze-dong, already long established as basic mass educational material, was urged with astonishing vigour. The red plastic-covered volume of quotations became familiar, not only in China where it was carried, waved at meetings, studied and recited, but also throughout the world. Mao Ze-dong’s Thought was proclaimed as a means of ‘transforming society and nature’ and as the key to solving all problems. It became clear that for some time at least Mao’s writings would occupy a larger share of the curriculum throughout the school system.

Mao is held up in China as the successor to, and developer of the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, whose pictures stand opposite the Tian An Men (Gate of Heavenly Peace) on National Day. The works of these earlier writers are available in Chinese translations, but they are only read by a small percentage of the millions who read the works of Mao. Therefore only a brief attempt will be made here to compare Mao’s ideas with those of European Marxism.

Mao’s Thoughts will be examined under the general themes of man, society, and knowledge, followed by some of his specific comments on education. It will be argued here that many of his ideas affecting education have their roots deep in the Chinese tradition. It is therefore apposite to begin by briefly outlining his early life and education.

Mao Ze-dong was born in the village of Shaoshan in Hunan Province on 26 December 1893. His father was a peasant of moderate means and Mao Ze-dong began working on the land at the age of six. At seven he began attending the local primary school, which was one of the old classical schools in which the pupils were forced to memorize the classics without understanding them. In spite of this Mao acquired a love of reading, and soon began to devour the great novels which his teachers banned. He was especially drawn to stories of heroes and rebels, like those in The Water Margin, and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

When Mao was about thirteen he left the primary school and worked full-time on his father’s land. At seventeen he took up studies again, going for a year to the Dongshan Primary School in his mother’s native town of Xiangxiang. This school was a modern-style one, and here Mao for the first time encountered European ideas. He read political periodicals, and became influenced by Yan Fu, the great translator, and the reformers Kang You-wei and Liang Qi-chao. He also read historical biographies and was greatly impressed by George Washington and Napoleon.

In 1911 he went to Changsha, the provincial capital, and here witnessed the revolution which proclaimed the Great Han Republic. Together with some friends, he cut off his pigtail, symbol of Manchu oppression, and at the end of the year he joined the revolutionary army for six months. Perhaps even more significant, he began to read newspapers, which he later described as one of ‘the two most important instruments of education’ (Schram, 1963, p. 214).

Coming out of the army on 15 February 1912, Mao looked around for a suitable means of further study. He considered a police school, a soap-making school, and a law school. He joined a commercial school for a month, but left when he found that much of the work was conducted in English, which he could not understand. After this he spent six months in the First Provincial Secondary School, Changsha, for whose entrance examination he had passed first.

In the summer of 1912 Mao left school and for a time studied on his own. He ate very little and spent his days reading in the Provincial Library. Whatever money he had went on newspapers.

From 1913 to 1918 Mao was a student at the First Teachers’ Training School in Changsha. Officially a secondary school, it provided an exceptionally good education with a strong humanist bias. The staff included a number of outstanding men, including the teacher of ethics, Yang Chang-ji, who was later to be a professor at Peking University and Mao Ze-dong’s father-in-law. Yang combined a classical education with ten years’ study abroad, in Japan, England and Germany. He was a follower of the twelfth-century neo-Confucian philosopher, Zhu Xi.

At the Training School Mao continued to develop his interest in history, and was also good in geography and history. His essays, improved by the study of the Tang essayist, Han Yu, were regularly displayed on the school walls.

During 1918 Mao helped found a political discussion group, the New People’s Study Society, which held weekly or fortnightly meetings and grew to a membership of eighty. He also, with other students from his school, taught in evening classes for workers and shop-assistants.

Late in 1918 he travelled to Peking where he worked as an assistant in the university library to the famous Li Da-zhao. Under his influence Mao moved towards Marxism.

Returning to Changsha in 1919 Mao became a teacher at the Xu-ye Primary School, and in 1920 he was appointed Headmaster of the Primary School attached to his old Teachers’ Training School. But his main interest was in politics, the politics of national revival, and revolution. He had, as he later told Edgar Snow, ‘become, in theory and to some extent in action, a Marxist, and from this time on I considered myself a Marxist.’ (Snow, 1937, p. 153).

Mao Ze-dong’s Thoughts are presented to the Chinese public in a variety of forms, in selections ranging in time from 1926 to the present. Foreign readers have in certain cases access to the original texts (Schram, 1963; Brandt, 1952; Compton, 1952), but those works read in China today have been carefully edited to teach the required lessons. While this obscures the development of Mao’s ideas it does not affect the present study which is concerned with what has been taught in China during the past two decades.

Various editions of the Selected Works have appeared in China, beginning in 1951. In spite of this the demand would appear to have exceeded the supply, and foreigners in China have had the embarrassing experience of being taken into the corner of the main bookshop in Peking and sold a copy from under the counter, while a few yards away Chinese were being told the edition was sold out. In 1966 the Selected Works were reprinted in the simplified characters, enabling them to be read by a much wider group of people.

The world-famous little red book, the Quotations from Chairman Mao, first appeared in May 1964 in an edition published by the General Political Department of the People’s Liberation Army. It was initially circulated in various organizations, but appeared in the shops in 1966.

What had been available on a mass scale before 1966 were separate pamphlets, editions of what had been considered to be the most important articles for popular study. Most talked of were the ‘three old articles’: Serve the People, 1944; In Memory of Norman Bethune, 1939; and The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains, 1945.

The two philosophical essays, On Practice, 1937, and On Contradiction, 1937, have also been widely studied, but were regarded as much more difficult than the ‘three old articles’. Together with Reform Our Study, 1941, and other material, they were used by the Youth League in its study programme (Myrdal, 1967, p. 251).

Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art, 1942, has been reprinted a number of times, and studied particularly by those working in these fields. During the Cultural Revolution, when the nature and exercise of political power became the main issue, people were urged to study On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, 1957; the Speech at the National Conference of the Communist Party on Propaganda, 1957; On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party, 1929; Combat Liberalism, 1937; On New Democracy, 1940; The May 4th Movement, 1939; and Orientation of the Youth Movement, 1939.

Mao’s ideas on the nature of man

Mao regards man as a product of his social class, with his ideas and habits strongly determined by his origin. But at the same time he appears to have an almost infinite belief in man’s ability to rise above these limitations. Time and again in his writings he returns to education, persuasion and ideological work as a means of eradicating various errors which he identifies in the work of the Communist Party. These errors are often couched in terms of individual psychology: individualism; or subjectivism. They are often regarded as characteristics of a particular class: ‘putschism’ is attributed to the petty bourgeoisie and lumpen-proletariat; or ‘ultra-democracy’ and ‘subjectivism’ is attributed to the peasantry and p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• World education series
• MAP OF CHINA: Provinces and main towns
• General editor’s introduction
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• 1 Educational aims and the thoughts of Mao Ze-dong
• 2 The Chinese tradition—background to Mao’s thoughts
• 3 Obstacles to educational reform
• 4 The full-time schools
• 5 Part-time schools and classes
• 6 The teachers
• 7 The moral-political educators
• 8 Education and the Cultural Revolution, 1966–1969
• Bibliography
• Further reading
• Chronological table
• Transcriptions
• Map of language families and dialect groups
• Glossary
• Index