Modern Ideology Of Mao And Liang Shuming's Rural Society Is A Comparative Study

As an impoverished and backward oriented power in the early twentieth century, it is impossible for China to simply copy the western model in her course of modernization. Instead, the right way is to try to build socialism, a socialism suited to our own conditions. From the point view of the significance of the history about the thoughts of modernization, it reveals that the meaning of Mao Zedong and Liang Shuming in the twentieth-century lies in that they based upon the unique character of Chinese society, treated the transformation in the rural society as a point cut as well as a fundamental construction in Chinese modernization process, and provided a fresh perspective and method for Chinese society's modernizing.Although there are enormous differences between Mao Zedong and Liang Shuming, the former as a Marxian and the latter as the earliest founder of the contemporary neo-Confucianism, when concerning with weltanschauung and methodology on the realization about the Chinese society, their attitudes toward the modernization trend and Sanitization are accordant, and in their personal different theory view and practice environment, this accord has caused them not only to focus on the rural area which is a special field in Chinese modernization, but also to put forward a whole project, included politics economics and culture, in the modernization change of the rural society. However, in the interactive frame of modernization and the particularity of China, Mao Zedong realized the meanings and objectives of the transformation in rural areas from a strategy level of political national modernization paralleled with Liang Shuming's viewpoint which was to establish a cultural society opposite to the political nation from the rural areas. Thus, all of these led to a thought which was both blended and clashed to each other. What's more, the clash was not an inconsistency between revolution and reformation but a reflection of two similar and inter-assist pictures about the modernization transition in the rural areas of China.It remains a global problem as to how to step into the range of modernization as the posterior developing countries, and the considerations of Mao Zedong and Liang Shuming's toward the modernization of the rural society have exceeded the various excessive thinking models like wholesale Westernization and the ideas that hold on to the theory from the East and learning the foreign materials from the West which opened up a fresh gateway for Chinese modernization. Moreover, their concrete expositions of how the rural areas would achieve their transformation have offered the present modernization construction a vital inspiration.Based upon what has mentioned above, this article has made a comparative study of Mao Zedong and Liang Shuming's theories on modernization of the rural society in the following six aspects:Chapterl Introduction This article firstly raises a standpoint of comparing and studying Mao Zedong and Liang Shimming from the perspective of the modernization of China in twentieth-century:(1) They are both prominent ideologists in the movement of modernization, their theories and practices have affected the modernization's orientation of China and had an international significance. (2) Mao Zedong's exploration of sinicizing Marxism and Liang Shuming's pursue of fusing the Chinese tradition and modernity have together stressed the option of modern Sinicization. (3) They both focused on the rural areas and treated the solutions of the problems which had been being in the rural areas, and the achievements which required a harmonious development between the urban and the rural areas as a vital condition to realize the modernization of Chinese characters. Through analyzing the foreign and domestic research status and accomplishment, this article has concluded the comparison, research frame and meaning according to the thoughts about the modernization of the rural society from Mao Zedong and Liang Shuming.Chapter2 This chapter has compared and analyzed the background and the characteristics of the rural areas as the core in the process of the modernization of China. Among the options to achieve the modernization in the first half twentieth century in China, Mao Zedong and Liang Shuming's frames on modernization are both an agreement of the global modernization and an exploration of the road for Chinese society's transformation: Mao Zedong had advanced the important proposition filled with creativities on the Marxism's Sinicization within the CPC, and Liang insisted that the modernization of China should be an integration of the Chinese traditional inherent spirit, the western science and technology, and the organizations together to create a new civilization of human beings. To start with both a common option of the Sinicization and a integrative angle of view, they had regarded the transformation in rural areas as the strategy footstone of a modern country. But, due to the different coordinate system, the differences of the goals and measures for the transformation in the rural areas are obvious.Chapter3 In this chapter there has been an explanation about the politics in the rural areas----the thoughts on the society's transformation, which is the foundation of reestablishing the rural society. As the starting point, this section mainly begins with the politics in the rural areas, which means the society's reestablishment, and then after comparing the thoughts toward the management of the rural areas between Mao and Liang, the author concluded the basic train of thoughts and measures. As to the poor and backward rural areas in modern times, it requires the government to organize the peasants, reestablish a new politics and society's frame at the grassroots level and realize the integration of powers to win the liberation in both politics and economics. The democracy of the rural areas is the fundament of the national political democratization, which is the common agreement of Mao and Liang, but, as a result of their diverse Weltanschauung, they are obviously different in the aspects of the preconditions of the integration of the rural areas, the reasons for agglomerating the peasants and the final result.Chapter4 Having compared and analyzed the Mao and Liang's thoughts of the economic development in the rural areas which is the economic foundation of the modernization of the rural society, this section is mainly about the following contents: Mao and Liang had both concentrated on vitalizing the economy in the rural areas and improving the peasants'living condition with great efforts. Mao's thought had expressed his desire about the economic modernization in the rural areas, and his thought included the land reform, development of the rural cooperative economy and transformation of the relation of production as to develop the productivity. And Liang's project has touched the core problem of the modernization of China, and his project regards the rural areas and the agriculture as the core as well as propounds using the agriculture to promote the industry. However, under the current of history of industrialization, how to balance the relations of the industry and the agriculture, the urban areas and the rural areas, the production and the consumption is in a dilemma. As to this issue, Mao and Liang have bathing made some mistakes in theory and practice, but their ideas and explorations have offered us a frame of reference which is worthy of treating seriously.Chapter5 Having compared and analyzed the Mao and Liang's thoughts of the culture construction in the rural areas which is the human foundation of the modernization of the rural society, this section is mainly about the following contents: the reestablishment of the peasants' mental world is indispensable in the process of promoting the transformation of the rural society. Mao and Liang had commonly realized that without the liberation of the peasants'spirit and the moral conception's improvement there would be no condition of thoughts to be achieved in the transformation of the rural society. However, how to make the contemporary values and traditional conceptions mixed with each other is both the sticking point of the conflict in Liang's project of modernization and the element of causing frustration in the practice of Mao's thought of modernization. It is absolutely significant to rationally estimate the value that the traditional cultural moral sense performs in the course construction of human spirit in rural areas. Chapter6 This chapter has mainly remarked and analyzed the value of modernity in the Mao and Liang's thoughts which have focused on the modernization of the rural society. Through the regulation and reaction to the debate of whether Mao and Liang had a Populism thought in foreign and domestic academe nowadays, the author has raised a viewpoint that Mao and Liang's thoughts, including the mistake, on the transformation in the rural areas were based upon the consideration of how to realize modernization in a traditional agricultural country but not an exclusion when dealing with the trend of modernization. Nevertheless, Liang's project of economy development contains an obvious trend of Populism, and this is the main reason why his project of construction in rural areas is of unseemliness and self-contradiction. However, Mao had used the thoughts and measures of Marxism to conquer the partial misunderstanding caused by the Populism when facing the relation between the rural areas and the national modernization strategy, and this has solved the issue of how to integrate the modernity of posterior developing countries and the unique national characteristics.Conclusion The modernization of the rural society is a highly significant part in the process of modernization, and it is especially true for such a posterior developing countries as China. Mao and Liang's exploration of the road to realize modernization, which regards the rural areas as the jumping-off point, had demonstrated the special route of the modernization of China. And this is the exact connotation of thoughts to exceed various models of modernization and radicate her own advantage. Their considerations and explorations had provided the practice of contemporary modernization with great precious inspiration of thoughts in China: No modernization of the rural areas, no modernization of China.