Communist Manifesto Chapter Summary
Introduction
At the beginning of the twentieth century, an interesting and special period began in Chinese history when the powerful western countries were trying to dominate China as much as possible. Their ambition grew when they found abundant resources in China and their invading action was aroused due to the incompetence of the Qing government. Gradually, some regions of China became semi-colonies. On the one hand, Chinese people’s human rights were deprived under the colonial domination, resulting in Chinese people’s resent to these western countries. On the other hand, the invasion of the Western Powers also brought modern thought and led many thinkers and activists to look for the best ideology among these thoughts to extricate …show more content…
China from semi-colonial and semi-feudal status, fighting for China’s own development. The most outstanding one among these thinkers and activists in this special period was Mao Zedong who was famous for his theory of “Asian Marxism” which emphasized on mass power, social classes and peasant involvement to establish a strong defense against the capitalist enemies. This great thought should was attributed by his path of education that enabled he to witness many significant social movements organized by the poor, to study the publications about the Western ideas, and to discuss with people with unique insights about Chinese social movements during the first two decades in the 20th century. Therefore, this essay aims to research on Mao’s path of education that changed his concern and reflection on the society and politics and finally helped him develop into an outstanding activist and thinker.
Body Paragraphs
In the early period of Mao’ receiving education, the first book attracted his attention and stirred up his interest of continuing study was “Words of Warning”. After giving up learn the Classics in school when he was thirteen due to lack interest, he still pondered over the book “Words of Warning”. This book discussed the weaknesses of China through showing its lack of Western applications1. Therefore, Mao was deeply influence by the idea that importing western facilities to China and educating people the modern culture could unite the power of China and save the country. Thanks to the slight influence of the Classics which has a common saying “Every man alive has a duty to his country”, Mao wanted to save his country through studying Western culture. Despite the disapproval of his father at the beginning, Mao did not give up his decision but studied with a Law student for one and a half year (Snow 1969, 129).
Later Mao studied in the little Chinese School and became an antitheist under the guidance of the “radical teacher” in this school who “wanted to get rid of gods” and “urged people to convert their temples into schools.” However, Mao’s mother was devout believer of Buddhism and always gave her children religious instruction. Before learning in this school, Mao and his mother were in the same religious “party” and used to worship Buddha (Snow 1969, 128). His idea about gods started to change due to his extensive reading. But what fundamentally shifted him into an unbeliever was the influence of this “radical teacher”. Mao admired this teacher who conducted intrepid actions to challenging the traditional thoughts of Chinese people. The thoughts of this “radical teacher” coincided with the ideas in “Words of Warming” which made a great impact on Mao by putting a strong emphasis on educating people for raising the power of the country. Thus, Mao could easily agree with the view of this teacher even it was a little bit radical to require people to completely give up the traditional religious beliefs (Snow 1969, 131).
During this period, Mao was also affected by the movements organized by the poor, leading to his rebellious mind. The first movement affecting him was an insurrection in the city brought by hundreds of people that were suffering from the starvation and haughtiness of the civil governor at that time. Forced by the insurrection of people, the commissioner of the Internal Affairs promised them with food. Unfortunately, the empire removed this commissioner from the office of Internal Affair and beheaded many insurrectionists. The second thing was a severe famine in Mao’s hometown in that year. Although the rich farmers like Mao’s father were demanded to offer the poor food, they did not feel sympathetic toward the poor at all and still exported rice to cities. As a result, the local poor peasants were incensed at their behavior and seized Mao’s father’s consignments. Unlike Mao who sympathized with the poor and regarded them as his siblings who were suffering from starvation, his father could not understand the hardship of the poor as he was always living in abundance. In addition, the empire and nobilities were living in luxury from birth. Therefore, Mao’s father and the empire would never understand the situation of starvation and poverty. They also underestimated the power of the lower class and did not think it necessary to offer them food. But the history proved that once the poor were forced by the poverty and lack of support from the rich, they would unite in resistance and started revolution. Although the first social movement was not successful, Mao saw a hope for the poor to gain a better situation and the power in the second event as they united all strength of lower class and challenged the rich (Snow 1969, 130).
Through exposure to more social movements, Mao was stirred up a certain amount of political consciousness and finally made firm decision to achieve a higher level of education after reading a pamphlet about the Western powers that were going to dismember China (Snow 1969, 131). Then, he pursued further education in the Hunan Normal School where he read two books about the idea of Chinese social reformism of Kang Yu-wei and Liang Chi-chao. In these books, Kang and Liang discussed the weakness of China caused by the low quality of its people. They allocated that social reformism could change China, and the key of social reform was establishing schools for cultivating talents and developing civil wisdom. Mao agreed with them that Chinese people would be more aware of their rights and fight against the oppression of Western powers to get rid of the invasion of Western powers and accomplish Chinese modernization (Snow 1969, 133). Mao was deeply impressed by their argument that Chinese feudal society would shift to the capitalism society. From observation of the social movements, Mao had realized that most of the poor were at the bottom of the society and unable to receive proper education. Lack of education resulted in their lack of rights awareness, and people did not dare to challenge the sovereign power of the empire. Although the poor organized some social movements, they still failed because they did not have enough knowledge to develop a great strategy to lead and instruct the movements. The previous reading and Kang and Liang’s publications, deepened Mao’s realization of the role and significance of education, which would make China, become independent, democratic and powerful. Persuade by the argumentation of Kang and Liang, Mao got the political idea of social reformism brought by higher education.
Beside Kang and Liang’s publications, the newspapers also played a decisive role in affecting Mao’s idea. The newspapers, such as “People’s Strength”, “Hsiang Kiang Daily News”, and “People’s Paper”, had offered great insight to Mao. One article in “Hsiang Kiang Daily News” described the idea of socialism reinforced Mao’s political idea in this aspect. According to this article, socialism is the idea that advocates the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole (Snow 1969, 138). In other students’ opinion, the idea of socialism was incredible, but Mao paid much attention to it. As we all know, the idea of socialism contributed to Mao’s political idea in the coming future. Nonetheless, the idea of socialism discussed in “Hsiang Kiang Daily News” was actually social-reformism, attracting Mao since he was influenced by the classical ideas of “Jian’ai” in Mohist and the idea of “datong” in Confucianism. As a result, this idea of “Socialism” was appealing to the point of stories of Old China, which is equality.
Mao’s political idea started to take shape after he went to the Hunan Provincial First Normal School. At that time, Mao was only a believer of “mixture idea of liberalism, democratic reformism, and Utopia Socialism.” A teacher named T’ang gave Mao an old copy of the “People’s Paper” telling the story of two Chinese students who were travelling across China. Mao was greatly motivated by this story decided to travel in Hunan, starting his further experiment of Chinese revolution. During his trip, Mao “led a group of students around himself”, bringing the birth of a society called Hsin Min HsuehHui (Snow 1969, 142-144). The initial aim of this organization was innovate academic learning and improve the customs. Mao hoped this organization could improve the comprehensive quality of people through cooperation within members. In this society, Mao and his members discussed “the nature of men, of human society, of China, of the World, and of the universe”. It was clear that Mao had determined his goal of exploration and pursuit as realizing the socialism (Snow 1969, 145).
The Magazine, “New Youth” ” by Chen Tu-hsiu, further established a foundation for Mao’s future political idea. This magazine described the Literary Renaissance and held a high flag of democracy and science. Compared to Liang, Chen was more realistic and emphasized in “New Youth” the revolution of anti-imperialist and anti-feudal, targeting at arousing Chinese people from numbness. But “Journal of New People” only stressed the social-reformism and offered no way for China to get out of the shackle of feudalism. Due to this difference, Chen Tu-hsiu eventually replaced Kang and Liang and became a new idol of Mao. (Snow 1969, 147-148). This magazine helped a lot in shaping Mao’s mixture political idea of “liberalism, democratic reformism, and Utopian Socialism”, reflecting from Mao’s comment that after he met Chen in Shanghai, Chen Tu-hsiu had influenced him perhaps more than any one else.
Then, Mao’s idea moved to the new level after reading three books, “The Communist Manifesto” translated by Chen Wang-tao, “Class Struggle” by Kautsky; and “History of Socialism” by Kirkupp.
With the help of these books, Mao started embrace of Marxism that attached great importance to mass power and social classes (Snow 1969, 155). The shifting of Mao’s mind into Marxism was a corollary. First, the social movements that Mao had experienced and witnessed the power of lower classes resulted in his agreement to Marxism. In addition, in 1920 when Mao organized a celebration for the third anniversary of the Russian October Revolution with other members of Hsin Min HsuehHui, their action was oppressed by the police. Although some of the members argued that they did not break any law, the police was not impressed and replied that they only listened to the orders of the governor. Through observation, he came to understand that “only mass political power, secured through mass action, could guarantee the realization of dynamic form” (Snow 1969, 155). Second, the idea of Marxism was coincident with the outlaw book favored by Mao glorifying “men of arms, and rule of the people”. Mao had perceived that these books also discussed the idea of mass power and class struggle. As a result, a belief took root in Mao’s mind that people from the lower class can successfully overthrow the power of the ruling class. According Mao’s words, these books inspired him and made him interest in revolution since his childhood (Snow 1969, 128). Third, Mao’s political opinion of a mixture idea of liberalism, democratic reformism, and Utopia Socialism” also led him to accept the idea of
Marxism.
Based on the above argument, Mao’s development into a thinker and activist was an inevitable consequence of the history of Chinese revolutionary movements. The political idea of Mao emphasized on the Mass power due to the feature of Chinese revolution when the enemies were always extremely powerful, whereas the revolutionary force was relatively weak. For example, the police easily oppressed the social movements organized by Mao in Hunan in 1920. Since then, Mao has come to understand that “only mass political power, secured through mass action, could guarantee the realization of dynamic form”. This idea of Mao coincided with the Marxism which was therefore extremely appealing to Mao. However, the Marxism distained the rural mass. In China, the peasant class took the majority of Chinese population, but the working class only accounted to 0.5 percent in early 1900. Therefore, it was hard to extract power from workers for a successful revolution. Since Mao had grown up in a peasant family, he understood the power of peasants. Also, Mao inspected peasant organizations and political conditions in five bsien in Hunan in 1927. Gradually, Mao formed his opinion of using power of peasants for revolution even though his idol, Chen Tu-hsiu was strongly opposite to him. But the following fighting and results showed that Mao was right. In 1927, the peasant movements in Hunan, Hupeh, Kiangsi and Fukien had developed a startling militancy. At that moment, the peasants who represented the mass power in China were ready for a social revolution.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the education path of Mao successfully helped him develop his political idea of Chinese revolution. In this process, he kept learning and discussing with the people around him. Moreover, the greatness of Mao was not only brought by his learning from the books and listening to other thinkers, but also by experiment of his ideas in rural areas. Therefore, Mao’s distinct Marxism was not indulged in empty talk but adopted new ideas from other people. Mao’s theory of allocating the importance of peasant class as Chinese mass power fitted the actual facts of China. That’s why under the guidance of Mao’s theory, China could move toward a country of independence and self-reliance.
Bibliography
Snow, Edgar. Red star over China. Grove Press, 1968.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, an interesting and special period began in Chinese history when the powerful western countries were trying to dominate China as much as possible. Their ambition grew when they found abundant resources in China and their invading action was aroused due to the incompetence of the Qing government. Gradually, some regions of China became semi-colonies. On the one hand, Chinese people’s human rights were deprived under the colonial domination, resulting in Chinese people’s resent to these western countries. On the other hand, the invasion of the Western Powers also brought modern thought and led many thinkers and activists to look for the best ideology among these thoughts to extricate …show more content…
China from semi-colonial and semi-feudal status, fighting for China’s own development. The most outstanding one among these thinkers and activists in this special period was Mao Zedong who was famous for his theory of “Asian Marxism” which emphasized on mass power, social classes and peasant involvement to establish a strong defense against the capitalist enemies. This great thought should was attributed by his path of education that enabled he to witness many significant social movements organized by the poor, to study the publications about the Western ideas, and to discuss with people with unique insights about Chinese social movements during the first two decades in the 20th century. Therefore, this essay aims to research on Mao’s path of education that changed his concern and reflection on the society and politics and finally helped him develop into an outstanding activist and thinker.
Body Paragraphs
In the early period of Mao’ receiving education, the first book attracted his attention and stirred up his interest of continuing study was “Words of Warning”. After giving up learn the Classics in school when he was thirteen due to lack interest, he still pondered over the book “Words of Warning”. This book discussed the weaknesses of China through showing its lack of Western applications1. Therefore, Mao was deeply influence by the idea that importing western facilities to China and educating people the modern culture could unite the power of China and save the country. Thanks to the slight influence of the Classics which has a common saying “Every man alive has a duty to his country”, Mao wanted to save his country through studying Western culture. Despite the disapproval of his father at the beginning, Mao did not give up his decision but studied with a Law student for one and a half year (Snow 1969, 129).
Later Mao studied in the little Chinese School and became an antitheist under the guidance of the “radical teacher” in this school who “wanted to get rid of gods” and “urged people to convert their temples into schools.” However, Mao’s mother was devout believer of Buddhism and always gave her children religious instruction. Before learning in this school, Mao and his mother were in the same religious “party” and used to worship Buddha (Snow 1969, 128). His idea about gods started to change due to his extensive reading. But what fundamentally shifted him into an unbeliever was the influence of this “radical teacher”. Mao admired this teacher who conducted intrepid actions to challenging the traditional thoughts of Chinese people. The thoughts of this “radical teacher” coincided with the ideas in “Words of Warming” which made a great impact on Mao by putting a strong emphasis on educating people for raising the power of the country. Thus, Mao could easily agree with the view of this teacher even it was a little bit radical to require people to completely give up the traditional religious beliefs (Snow 1969, 131).
During this period, Mao was also affected by the movements organized by the poor, leading to his rebellious mind. The first movement affecting him was an insurrection in the city brought by hundreds of people that were suffering from the starvation and haughtiness of the civil governor at that time. Forced by the insurrection of people, the commissioner of the Internal Affairs promised them with food. Unfortunately, the empire removed this commissioner from the office of Internal Affair and beheaded many insurrectionists. The second thing was a severe famine in Mao’s hometown in that year. Although the rich farmers like Mao’s father were demanded to offer the poor food, they did not feel sympathetic toward the poor at all and still exported rice to cities. As a result, the local poor peasants were incensed at their behavior and seized Mao’s father’s consignments. Unlike Mao who sympathized with the poor and regarded them as his siblings who were suffering from starvation, his father could not understand the hardship of the poor as he was always living in abundance. In addition, the empire and nobilities were living in luxury from birth. Therefore, Mao’s father and the empire would never understand the situation of starvation and poverty. They also underestimated the power of the lower class and did not think it necessary to offer them food. But the history proved that once the poor were forced by the poverty and lack of support from the rich, they would unite in resistance and started revolution. Although the first social movement was not successful, Mao saw a hope for the poor to gain a better situation and the power in the second event as they united all strength of lower class and challenged the rich (Snow 1969, 130).
Through exposure to more social movements, Mao was stirred up a certain amount of political consciousness and finally made firm decision to achieve a higher level of education after reading a pamphlet about the Western powers that were going to dismember China (Snow 1969, 131). Then, he pursued further education in the Hunan Normal School where he read two books about the idea of Chinese social reformism of Kang Yu-wei and Liang Chi-chao. In these books, Kang and Liang discussed the weakness of China caused by the low quality of its people. They allocated that social reformism could change China, and the key of social reform was establishing schools for cultivating talents and developing civil wisdom. Mao agreed with them that Chinese people would be more aware of their rights and fight against the oppression of Western powers to get rid of the invasion of Western powers and accomplish Chinese modernization (Snow 1969, 133). Mao was deeply impressed by their argument that Chinese feudal society would shift to the capitalism society. From observation of the social movements, Mao had realized that most of the poor were at the bottom of the society and unable to receive proper education. Lack of education resulted in their lack of rights awareness, and people did not dare to challenge the sovereign power of the empire. Although the poor organized some social movements, they still failed because they did not have enough knowledge to develop a great strategy to lead and instruct the movements. The previous reading and Kang and Liang’s publications, deepened Mao’s realization of the role and significance of education, which would make China, become independent, democratic and powerful. Persuade by the argumentation of Kang and Liang, Mao got the political idea of social reformism brought by higher education.
Beside Kang and Liang’s publications, the newspapers also played a decisive role in affecting Mao’s idea. The newspapers, such as “People’s Strength”, “Hsiang Kiang Daily News”, and “People’s Paper”, had offered great insight to Mao. One article in “Hsiang Kiang Daily News” described the idea of socialism reinforced Mao’s political idea in this aspect. According to this article, socialism is the idea that advocates the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole (Snow 1969, 138). In other students’ opinion, the idea of socialism was incredible, but Mao paid much attention to it. As we all know, the idea of socialism contributed to Mao’s political idea in the coming future. Nonetheless, the idea of socialism discussed in “Hsiang Kiang Daily News” was actually social-reformism, attracting Mao since he was influenced by the classical ideas of “Jian’ai” in Mohist and the idea of “datong” in Confucianism. As a result, this idea of “Socialism” was appealing to the point of stories of Old China, which is equality.
Mao’s political idea started to take shape after he went to the Hunan Provincial First Normal School. At that time, Mao was only a believer of “mixture idea of liberalism, democratic reformism, and Utopia Socialism.” A teacher named T’ang gave Mao an old copy of the “People’s Paper” telling the story of two Chinese students who were travelling across China. Mao was greatly motivated by this story decided to travel in Hunan, starting his further experiment of Chinese revolution. During his trip, Mao “led a group of students around himself”, bringing the birth of a society called Hsin Min HsuehHui (Snow 1969, 142-144). The initial aim of this organization was innovate academic learning and improve the customs. Mao hoped this organization could improve the comprehensive quality of people through cooperation within members. In this society, Mao and his members discussed “the nature of men, of human society, of China, of the World, and of the universe”. It was clear that Mao had determined his goal of exploration and pursuit as realizing the socialism (Snow 1969, 145).
The Magazine, “New Youth” ” by Chen Tu-hsiu, further established a foundation for Mao’s future political idea. This magazine described the Literary Renaissance and held a high flag of democracy and science. Compared to Liang, Chen was more realistic and emphasized in “New Youth” the revolution of anti-imperialist and anti-feudal, targeting at arousing Chinese people from numbness. But “Journal of New People” only stressed the social-reformism and offered no way for China to get out of the shackle of feudalism. Due to this difference, Chen Tu-hsiu eventually replaced Kang and Liang and became a new idol of Mao. (Snow 1969, 147-148). This magazine helped a lot in shaping Mao’s mixture political idea of “liberalism, democratic reformism, and Utopian Socialism”, reflecting from Mao’s comment that after he met Chen in Shanghai, Chen Tu-hsiu had influenced him perhaps more than any one else.
Then, Mao’s idea moved to the new level after reading three books, “The Communist Manifesto” translated by Chen Wang-tao, “Class Struggle” by Kautsky; and “History of Socialism” by Kirkupp.
With the help of these books, Mao started embrace of Marxism that attached great importance to mass power and social classes (Snow 1969, 155). The shifting of Mao’s mind into Marxism was a corollary. First, the social movements that Mao had experienced and witnessed the power of lower classes resulted in his agreement to Marxism. In addition, in 1920 when Mao organized a celebration for the third anniversary of the Russian October Revolution with other members of Hsin Min HsuehHui, their action was oppressed by the police. Although some of the members argued that they did not break any law, the police was not impressed and replied that they only listened to the orders of the governor. Through observation, he came to understand that “only mass political power, secured through mass action, could guarantee the realization of dynamic form” (Snow 1969, 155). Second, the idea of Marxism was coincident with the outlaw book favored by Mao glorifying “men of arms, and rule of the people”. Mao had perceived that these books also discussed the idea of mass power and class struggle. As a result, a belief took root in Mao’s mind that people from the lower class can successfully overthrow the power of the ruling class. According Mao’s words, these books inspired him and made him interest in revolution since his childhood (Snow 1969, 128). Third, Mao’s political opinion of a mixture idea of liberalism, democratic reformism, and Utopia Socialism” also led him to accept the idea of
Marxism.
Based on the above argument, Mao’s development into a thinker and activist was an inevitable consequence of the history of Chinese revolutionary movements. The political idea of Mao emphasized on the Mass power due to the feature of Chinese revolution when the enemies were always extremely powerful, whereas the revolutionary force was relatively weak. For example, the police easily oppressed the social movements organized by Mao in Hunan in 1920. Since then, Mao has come to understand that “only mass political power, secured through mass action, could guarantee the realization of dynamic form”. This idea of Mao coincided with the Marxism which was therefore extremely appealing to Mao. However, the Marxism distained the rural mass. In China, the peasant class took the majority of Chinese population, but the working class only accounted to 0.5 percent in early 1900. Therefore, it was hard to extract power from workers for a successful revolution. Since Mao had grown up in a peasant family, he understood the power of peasants. Also, Mao inspected peasant organizations and political conditions in five bsien in Hunan in 1927. Gradually, Mao formed his opinion of using power of peasants for revolution even though his idol, Chen Tu-hsiu was strongly opposite to him. But the following fighting and results showed that Mao was right. In 1927, the peasant movements in Hunan, Hupeh, Kiangsi and Fukien had developed a startling militancy. At that moment, the peasants who represented the mass power in China were ready for a social revolution.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the education path of Mao successfully helped him develop his political idea of Chinese revolution. In this process, he kept learning and discussing with the people around him. Moreover, the greatness of Mao was not only brought by his learning from the books and listening to other thinkers, but also by experiment of his ideas in rural areas. Therefore, Mao’s distinct Marxism was not indulged in empty talk but adopted new ideas from other people. Mao’s theory of allocating the importance of peasant class as Chinese mass power fitted the actual facts of China. That’s why under the guidance of Mao’s theory, China could move toward a country of independence and self-reliance.
Bibliography
Snow, Edgar. Red star over China. Grove Press, 1968.