.1920 Before And After "modernization" And "socialist" Interpretation

Since the Opium War, China was forced to start process of modernization. While learning material, politics, ideology and culture from the Western capitalism, the national crisis was deepening. At around 1920, socialism was widely concerned as a new choice, and then involved in the course of history and became the dominant trend of the development of Chinese society. It finally achieved founding of a national state which is the top priority of China's modernization.To understand issues of modernization in China, it must be based on the unique historical task facing by modern China. As a modernization from without, the tension between tradition and modern was presented with comparison of the strong and weak between China and the West. Searching for wealth and power was the actual requirement of China's modernization. Various foreign social thoughts were interpreted in the historical themes of salvation and examined in the historical context of nationalism. After the founding of the Republic of China, with the republic quickly degenerating into military-gentry regime, the development of capitalism being stunted and the dilemmas of agricultural economy going on, the road of the West's modernization was bleak in China. Meanwhile, the October Revolution provided a new opportunity. Activism aroused by Paris Peace Conference in 1919 was immediately merged into socialism and China went on a non-west modernization way which represented an anti-west struggle for national independence.The usage of socialism in China was firstly taken aim at the practical needs for the theory, so it is necessary to interpret its connotation in historical circumstances of China. With the shift of China's modernization road at around 1920, the enlightenment of the New Culture Movement turned to political revolution. However, lack of full development of capitalism and sufficient enlightenment of modernity, socialism in China faced various pre-modern troubles and modern challenges. There would be a long way to go from tradition to modern, which was the problem that socialist modernization had to solve.Based on the new time platform, the thesis investigates the sharp shift of the China's modernization road at around 1920 and tries to sort out the innate logic of the choice of socialist modernization for China and also to get a deeper understanding of socialism and communism from theory to practice.