A Study Of Mao Zedong's Early Cultural View

Since the middle of the nineteenth century,modern China has gradually got into a serious political,economic and cultural predicament which is the result of the aggression and plunder of Western powers.Some people of noble aspirations who strove for the road of national salvation,carried out successively the movement of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom,the Westernization Movement,the reform movement,1911 Revolution and other patriotic activities.However,whether it is the westernization movement,reform movement of 1898,the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement or the 1911 revolution,they all have to consider such problems as how to treat Chinese traditional culture and how to deal with the conflict between Chinese and Western cultures,and what they should learn and how to learn from the west powers on the way to national salvation.Until the early twentieth Century,various foreign ideas were still confusing and the Chinese and Western cultures were in a violent conflict.Young Mao Zedong lived in such an era,carrying out his cultural study,comparison,selection and transformation,thus constructing his early cultural view.This paper holds that Mao Zedong's early cultural view is formed with three conditions,namely,background,theoretical origin and personal factors.Mao Zedong's early cultural view was formed and developed in the early twentieth Century and in the specific historical background of modern china.During Mao Zedong's youth period,the failure of many patriotic activities led to the urgent demand for cultural change,hence the new culture movement came into being,and the Marxism found its popularity in China around the time of the May 4th Movement.At the same time,the formation of Mao Zedong's early cultural view has various realistic and profound theoretical origins,which includes the influence of the traditional Confucian culture and Hunan culture,western bourgeois democratic culture enlightenment and Marx's scientific guidance.It is these theoretical origins that influence the formation and development of Mao Zedong's early cultural view.The formation and development of Mao Zedong's early cultural view are inseparable from his own qualities and efforts: his love of learning and open cultural vision,hiscultural spirit of independence,and his cultural position of patriotism,which ensured the correct development of Mao Zedong's early cultural view,and promoted its formation and development.A drastic change in one's thinking often involves a complex process of change from quantitative change to qualitative change.The construction of Mao Zedong's early cultural view was not accomplished overnight,and had a distinct track of development.Judging from the three cultural choices in modern China,this development track can be regarded as the epitome of the modern Chinese ideological and cultural history.The present study finds that the construction of Mao Zedong's early cultural view has gone through three stages of development.The first stage lasts from 1902 to 1913 when the initial construction and the first reconstruction of Mao Zedong's early cultural view is completed.From 1902 to 1910,young Mao Zedong laid a good foundation of traditional culture through private school study,and carried out the early accumulation of traditional culture--the beginning of culture.In the meantime,although Mao Zedong read such books as the Prosperous Prophecy and New Citizen which led to his indirect contact to western culture,the influence is not big.From 1910 to 1913,young Mao Zedong entered the new school and received the indirect effects of Modern Enlightenment thinkers such as Kang Youwei,Yan Fu,Liang Qichao.Then in Hunan provincial library he began his self-study by reading directly a large number of books on modern western bourgeois democratic doctrine.With his accepting modern western culture thought,the influence of the traditional culture Chinese was gradually weakened.Then began the first early reconstruction of cultural values.The second stage of development is the second reconstruction and formation of Mao Zedong's early cultural view,and the time is from 1913 to 1918 when young Mao Zedong studied in Hunan First Normal School.Influenced by the new culture movement and Yang Changji's influence,young Mao Zedong not only studied new ideas and new culture,but also took part in some practical activities.On the basis of Yang Changji's “combination of two civilizations” idea,young Mao Zedong put forward the idea of fusion transformation of western thought and Chinese thought at the same time,which is the second reconstruction of his early cultural view.The third stage of development from 1918 to 1920,which is the transformation and upgrading of Mao Zedong's early cultural view.Around the time of the May 4thmovement,young Mao Zedong was influenced by the cultural debates between Eastern and Western thoughts,and Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao's cultural views,he carried out a series of cultural activities,so his thought began to change greatly.By the end of 1920 and beginning of 1921,young Mao Zedong became a firm Marxist,and his early cultural view was also transformed and upgraded to Marx's view of scientific culture.This paper argues that Mao Zedong's early cultural view was formed in the conflict between Chinese and Western cultures,so he was influenced by various theories and views raised by his peers,but his idea is different from their Westernization theory.Deeply influenced by the traditional culture and experienced the baptism of the new western thoughts,young Mao Zedong inherited and developed the views put forward by Li Dazhao and Yang Changji,and formed his own cultural concept--the integration of "the convergence of the eastern and western civilization ".This paper holds that Mao Zedong's early cultural view mainly includes three aspects: the purpose theory,the difference theory and the transformation theory.According to young Mao Zedong,traditional Chinese culture has its serious weakness,he pointed out the fact that it was for the sake of rescuing the nation to carry out a comparison between Chinese and western cultures,and make a transformation of China's old culture.There was a difference between Chinese and western cultures,which should be treated with the dialectical view.Young Mao Zedong advocated that“the third type of culture” should be created out of the critical fusion of Chinese and western culture.Obviously,Mao Zedong's early cultural concept has three features:the openness of dialectic fusion of Chinese and western culture,the progress of keeping pace with the times,and the practicality of associating theory with practice.Young Mao Zedong formed his early cultural view on the basis of dialectical absorption,comparison and learning,which is in fact concerned with the issue of dealing with cultural contrast and combination of Chinese and western cultures.Without doubt Mao Zedong's early cultural view has a very important value and influence on the construction of China's new culture.This paper points out the three aspects as follows: firstly,Mao Zedong's early cultural view of “combination of eastern and western civilizations” provides the orientation of cultural innovation;secondly,it paved the way for the New-Democracy culture platform;thirdly,itprovided a scientific concept of communication between Chinese and western cultures and development of Chinese culture,which is of great value for China's construction of new culture.