Flee-a Study Of Gu Zhun And His Thought

Gu Zhun, as a thinker from 1950s' to 1970s', is well accepted in China now. This thesis focuses on his life experiences and thought, especially analyzes his life changes and the formation of his thought. This thesis tries to describe Gu Zhun's contribution to and role in the history of modern Chinese thought.The thesis is composed of three parts: introduction, analysis and conclusion. The introduction section mainly includes the purpose of this research, a general view of its related research, the structure of the thesis and its methodology.The analysis section contains two parts. The first part i.e. chapter 1 and 2 are mainly on his life, which mainly answers the following two questions. Why did he give up his rising career as an accountant in a "capitalistic" accounting firm and take the way of Chinese communist revolution? Why did he become a critical thinker after the middle of 1950s'?Chapter 1 tries to answer the first question: why Gu Zhun took the way of Chinese communist revolution in 1930s', while revolution was in a low stage. Through the analysis of his family, workplace, friends and the impact of culture and thought in Shanghai, we find that "rebellion" to his family is his initial motive for revolution; and that the free workplace, friends and the revolutionary culture and ideology then in Shanghai made it acceptable for this young man; and that the attraction of Marxism theory, especially the national crisis in 1930s' made him finally take the way of Chinese revolution.Chapter 2 answers why and how Gu Zhun became an exploring thinker. He voluntarily took the way of Chinese revolution. He had ups and downs in the party, but he concluded as a "failure" overall or periodically, the reasons for which included his personalities and the institutional structure of society. However, it is the final "failure"—his being impeached in "Three Opposition" Movement that led him to do critical thinking. The disillusion caused by the secret report of Khrushchev and his being judged as Rightist in the Anti-rightist Movement finally pushed him to critical thinking and exploring in theory and truth. This chapter also explains his life experiences while he was in the Institute of Economics in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and during the period from 1957 to 1974 in order to see outwardly why he could still continue his critical thinking even during the Cultural Revolution. The second part of the thesis i.e. chapter 3, 4 ,5 ,6 ,7 and 8 is research on Gu Zhun's thought including the basis of his thought, his economic ideas and social political ideas.Chapter 3 discusses how Gu Zhun turned to empiricism from idealism. The reason that his thought was the deepest of his age was that he went beyond the rationalism framework of idealism early in 1959 and primarily formed empiricism. His initial breaking through of the framework of rationalism is closely related to his anti-ritualism and the view of taking historical facts before theory, which was formed after he was taken as Rightist. Only in the Cultural Revolution did he point out theoretically that there was religious theology "pitfall" behind the rationalism. But his empiricism world view was formed after his study of western empiricism theories, on which Russell and Dowell had a great impact. His empiricism world view had two core contents: recognition of empirical multi-truth and ideal faith of empiricism advancement.Chapter 4 discusses why Gu Zhun could put forward the theory in early 1957 that it is possible to be market oriented in a socialism economic system. This theory was illustrated in the essay of On the Laws of Commodity Economy and Value in Socialism. Through the analysis of the background and the content of this article, we can see that his " market oriented" theory was based on his refusal of the planned economy in the Soviet Union and Stalin's economic theory, and this courage came from his understanding of Marx's economic theory after careful study of On Capital; and his political courage is quite related to the tolerating, active atmosphere in Chinese political theory field after the 20th meeting s of the Communist party in the Soviet Union(1956~the first half of 1957); academically, this article is closely related to the national discussion of " economic law" in the Chinese economic field. Though Gu Zhun studied the socialism economic system in the framework of Marxism theory, he started with " what shall happen after Nora left".Chapter 5 discusses Gu's thinking on "what shall happen after Nora left". This topic was put forward by Lu Xun in 1920s' originally, in which he warned that it was easy for the individual Nora to run away, but what should be done after the running-away. Through this topic, Gu presented his ideas on revolution and liberation of groups of people (from one nation to the whole man kind). His critical thinking on revolution was obviously an objection to the theory and practice of "continual revolution" in the Cultural Revolution. Gu highly regarded the "flushing" and "cleansing" revolution in human advancement process, but he objected to take revolution as a normal form in human society. In Gu's thinking on the Nora topic, the core was what kind of political and economic system should be established after revolution, and his answer was democracy, market economy and modernization. This chapter also studies Gu's ideas on the systems of socialism and capitalism. In his thinking, modernization was taken as the direction for human society development.Chapter 6 is about his thinking on Indirect Democracy, an important part of his thought. During the Cultural Revolution, the theory of "Big Democracy" was practiced, though it might have had some effects on anti-bureaucracy as direct democracy, it actually caused more chaos in Chinese society and politics. Involved in the democratic movement, he didn't simply refuse it, but rather started thinking on democracy, democracy and China and other problems based on the real democratic phenomenon, the historic democracy practice in both recent china and west, and modern democracy theory. He finally put forward that democracy must be based on science, and democracy in China can be practiced through representative as indirect democracy and through bi-party system.Chapter 7 is on his book Greek Castle System, through which we can see his concept orientation, research interests and questions in his exploration of the beginning and development of democracy in ancient Greek. The purpose of his ancient Greek research was to see why democracy was initiated in ancient Greek and the history of its practice. Two issues were mainly concerned in the research: how the concept of "democracy" was formed in ancient Greek and the role of Tyranny, in democratic process. Since his ultimate purpose was on democracy and China, the comparative research view for Sino-west difference can be found every where in the book. Gu was very clear: only after the difference was found could we know what kind of democracy can be established and conditions for the democracy.Chapter 8 is on Gu's research on the beginning of capitalism. This research on capitalism is both related to the Chinese academia and his Nora topic. Since modernization was taken as the objective for "running away", then the thinking on the beginning of modernization i.e. capitalism was truly very significant. Being different from Karl Marx and Marx Webb, Gu thought that law system, democratic nation and other policy factors and hidden rationalism and individualism of western cosmic and religious culture played key roles in the beginning of capitalism. From the perspective of modernization, the traditional Chinese monarchism and power first culture were criticized.The conclusion of the thesis has three components: first to present the development process of his thought, and the applied theory resources; and secondly to show the value and significance of his thought in the history of Chinese thought; finally to further elaborate on Gu's "fleeing" life and thought.