Constitutional Thoughts Of Chen Duxiu

Chen Duxiu is a great statesman and thinker in China's modern history; he was the advocate of the New Culture Movement, the commander-in-chief of the May Fourth Movement, and one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party. His political thought and legal thought had a profound impact both on the enlightenment in modern China and on the proletarian revolution led by the Chinese Communist Party. He spent his main life in exploring the path to realize China's prosperity and civilization, during this process, a system of political and legal thought formulated. The constitutional thought is the most important aspect in this system.This thesis is composed of six parts. Introduction states the significance of my research and reviews related literature on this topic.The first chapter mainly introduces the development context of Chen Duxiu's constitutional thought. The development of his constitutional thought had gone through four stages. Firstly, the bud of his constitutional thought, that is the transformation from feudalism to reformism; and then he transformed from a reformist to a radical bourgeois democrat under the influence of western democratic theory such as natural rights and Popular Sovereignty during the early period of the New Culture Movement. After the May Fourth Movement, Marxism spread into China. In accepting and learning Marxist theory, his constitutional thought changed from Bourgeois constitutional view to proletarian Constitutional view of Marxism. After 1927, Chen Duxiu gradually withdrew from the leadership of the Communist Party of China. Then he began to observe Chinese revolution and democracy in a new perspective, a new set of constitutional thought was formed.The second chapter mainly introduces Chen Duxiu's view on Human Rights. human rights thought is the most dazzling aspect in Chen Duxiu's constitutional thought, Chen Duxiu's human rights thought originated from the idea of natural rights in Western natural law theory in the 17th and 18th century. In the New Culture Movement, human rights were strongly advocated as one of the most important values by Chen Duxiu. This section mainly expounds the connotation, value and contents of human rights in the opinion of Chen Duxiu.The third chapter basically introduces Chen Duxiu's view on democracy, democratic thought was a main thread throughout Chen Duxiu's lifetime, and he spent all his life in concerning and pursuing democracy. In the different historical periods, his democratic thought was in a process of development and change. This part respectively expounds his bourgeois democratic ideas, proletarian democratic ideas and the mass democratic ideas in his old age according to the development course of his democratic thought.The fourth chapter basically introduces Chen Duxiu's constitution establishment theory. In the early 1820s, Yuan Shikai stirred up a backset of respect for Confucius on purpose to restore the monarchy. People who sustained respect for Confucius represented by Kang Youwei put forward the political opinion of Confucianism written in the constitution, while Chen Duxiu was one of the opponents. On the other hand, in the late stage of May Fourth Movement, the initiators of the New Culture Movement had a polarization. One faction was composed by Marxists represented by Chen Duxiu, who advocated realizing social transform by the violent revolution; the other faction was composed by reformists represented by Hu Shi, and they attempted to solve the problems of Chinese society by adjusting the division of power between the central and local government and implementing provincial autonomy. Chen Duxiu fiercely criticized these two views, and then showed his own constitution establishment theory.Conclusion summarizes and evaluates Chen Duxiu's constitutional thought and tries to point out the characteristics and limitations of his constitutional thought. The research to Chen Duxiu's constitutional thought has a great guiding significance to today's democratic political construction.