A Study Of LiDazhao's Thought Of Remolding National Virtue

The key of modernization is to modernize the people,which means the overall improvement and perfection of the people's comprehensive competence. The long feudalist dictatorial system and culture have imposed some deep-rooted bad habits on the national people which have difficulty in adapting to modernization. Therefore, remolding national virtue has been considerded as a great mission by people with lofty ideals since the Constitutional Reform and Modernization of 1898. During the May 4th Movement (1919), Li Dazhao was the first person both to systematically publicize Marxism and to try to remold national virtue by making conscious use of Marxism, thereby opening a new age of scientifically remolding national virtue in the history of modem china.The thesis is divided into three sections according to the trace of development of Li's thought.Section one introduces the seeds of Li's thought of remolding national virtue. The deepening of the then national crisis, the demand of that age for saving the nation from subjugation and ensuring its survival, and the formation of Li's patriotic thought, all these acted as the subjective and objective factors which boosted his thoutght of remolding national virtue. Li's early thought bore distinct limitations owing to his emphasis on developing education and self-training of one's moral, on political moral and the mutual influence of Party moral and popular moral.Section Two deals with the formation of Li's thought of remolding national virtue. During the New Culture Movement, armed with thetheory of evolution and individuality liberation, Li systematically analyzed the deep-rooted bad habits of the people and outlined the principles on which to remold national virtue. Moreorer, he imagined an approach to this purpose through enlightenment propogation. There were both positive significance and obvious limitations in his thought.Section three discusses Li's thought after Soviet's Revolution of October,1917. Guided by Marxism, Li analyzed the economic background underlying the deep-rooted bad habits of the people and put forward the fundamental principles of remolding national virtue, its support and choice of 'values, and the means to accomplish it. He realized a creative combination of Marx's theory of Human development and the remolding of Chinese people, thus opening a new age in which modern china began to consciously and scientifically remold national virtue.Characterized clearly by inheritance from his predecessors and innovation, Li's thought of remolding national virtue solved a few problems which had puzzled many thinkers of modern china. It still sheds positive enlightenment on the cultural and ideological progress today.