Rural Construction Thought Of The Republic Of Modernization Background

The Thought on Rural Construction emerging in the Republic of China is a conscious reflection on the modernization of Chinese rural areas since the late Qing Dynasty. This thesis, from the modern perspective, probes the thought on rural construction through the process of modernization in China in the past 100 years. It on the one hand systematically introduces the birth and development of this thought, on the other hand, illustrates the main points and the modern significance of this theory with a detailed analysis of the representative ideas at every typical stage of its development.Before rural construction set in as a social movement, the thought on rural construction already put out buds. A series of factors served as the driving force in its birth and developmental stage. They included the continuous declining of agricultural economy; the budding of the thought on autonomy in rural areas; the vigorous growth of the peasant movements; the long-existing rural area complex in traditional Chinese culture; the thoughts given by the intellectuals to Chinese agriculture and rural areas when facing national crisis; and the spreading of western pragmatic thoughts on education into China.Unique features highlighted different stages of its developing process. In the 1920s, the mainstream was the autonomy of the rural area and the thought on education in the rural area. The thought on the autonomy in the rural area reflected obviously the features of political democracy, emphasizing on the people's democratic rights, adding more conceptions concerning democratic system. The rural education at that time had improved greatly in terms of educational philosophy, the subjects receiving education, educational materials and educational methodology. In the exploration of educational modernization in the rural area, the reformers searched actively for the educational model catering to the practical needs of the rural areas, discarding those not applicable. Since 1930s, theorists and reformers in this field made an overall design and reform to the development of the rural area in political, economic, educational and cultural domains. Three construction models in Ding county, Zouping, and Beibei counties created by Yan Yangchu, Liang Shuming, and Lu Zuofu became the benchmarks for rural construction and reform from either educational, cultural or economic perspectives.Yan Yangchu thought the mission of rural construction is to reform the nation as a whole. Only if the four symptoms of Chinese people—foolishness, poverty, weakness, and selfishness were cured, could it be possible to create the new people with modern qualities. For this purpose, he designed " Four Educations" and " Three Models".Peasants were to be expected to undertake the mission of reviving the nation with enough knowledge, production power, strength and unity among themselves. Liang Shuming, as a philosopher, tended to seek the access to rural modernization from the cultural perspective. He suggested that the problems in China were neither political nor economic but cultural in nature. They were the result of a serious cultural dislocation, "creating new form of culture, reviving old rural areas" is principle put forward by him to effectively reform the traditional Confucius culture , to promote the political and economic development in rural areas. The rural reform in Zouping county is his experiment to reconstruct the nation through cultural measures.Lu Zuofu was another representative figure in the history of rural construction in the Republic of China who carried out the reform from economic perspective. He explicitly put forward the idea to urbanize and modernize the rural areas. Lu Zuofu insisted that the real purpose of rural construction is not only concerned with rural education and economic relief, but to fast modernize the rural area, paving the way to the modernization of the whole country. Constructing modern living group is the basis of his theory, and the construction activities initiated by him in Beibei county were all closely related to this concept of "modern living group".While the constructivists were making their reform in the rural area, the Chinese communists with Mao Zedong and Qu Quibai as the core, began their independent exploration both theoretically and practically to the situation of Chinese peasants and land system. Finally, facing the severe national crisis and class oppression, they made great contributions to the finding of a right course to the modernization of the rural area and the whole country which catered to the needs of China at that time.Politically, the thought on rural construction aims at the realization of political autonomy and democracy, fostering the consciousness of democracy in the hearts of Chinese peasants; economically, all experimental areas, guided by the thought, lead themselves to economic cooperation and the development of rural industry, making a significant tryout for the building of the modern economy in the rural area.The reflection on the modernization of rural social organizations and rural people leads to the understanding that the reconstruction of rural social organizations and the overall improvement of the peasants' quality is the prerequisite of the modernization in the rural area. Meanwhile, this reflection helps to spread into the rural areas the conceptions of democracy and science.The modernization in the rural area is indispensable to the modernization of the whole Chinese nation. Despite its inadequacies and limitations, the thought on rural construction in the Republic of China probes and reflects on the reforms of rural area, of agriculture and of the peasants; it prescribes for the modernization of Chinese rural area. Therefore, it is a worthwhile effort to refer to and learn from this modem systematic thought and its pragmatic significance today.