Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2 Read online

  The Seedbed of the Communist Revolution: The Peasantry and the Anarcho-Communist Movement (PETER ZARROW)

  Liu Shipei: “Anarchist Revolution and Peasant Revolution”

  Li Dazhao: The Victory of Bolshevism

  Mao’s Revolutionary Doctrine

  “Report on an Investigation of the Hunan Peasant Movement”

  “The Question of Land Redistribution”

  The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party

  The Mass Line

  On New Democracy

  The Dictatorship of the People’s Democracy

  35. Chinese Communist Praxis

  Liu Shaoqi: How to Be a Good Communist

  Mao Zedong: The Rectification Campaign

  Report of the Propaganda Bureau of the Central Committee on the Zhengfeng Reform Movement, April 1942

  Wang Shiwei: “Wild Lily”

  Liu Shaoqi: “On Inner-Party Struggle”

  Mao Zedong: “Combat Liberalism”

  Mao Zedong: “On Art and Literature”

  Wang Shiwei: “Political Leaders, Artists”

  Ding Ling: “Thoughts on March 8, 1942”

  36. The Mao Regime

  Establishment of the People’s Republic

  Mao Zedong: “Leaning to One Side”

  Mao Zedong: “Stalin Is Our Commander”

  Guo Moruo: Ode to Stalin—“Long Live Stalin” on His Seventieth Birthday, 1949 (Chao-ying Fang)

  Ji Yun: “How China Proceeds with the Task of Industrialization” (1953)

  Li Fuqun: “Report on the First Five-Year Plan for Development of the National Economy of the People’s Republic of China in 1953–1957, July 5 and 6, 1955”

  Changes in Mid-Course

  Mao Zedong: “The Question of Agricultural Cooperation,” July 31, 1955

  Mao Zedong: “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People”

  Liu Binyan: “A Higher Kind of Loyalty”

  Intellectual Opinions from the Hundred Flowers Period

  Mao Zedong: Remarks at the Beidaihe Conference, August 1958

  Peng Dehuai: “Letter of Opinion” to Mao Zedong on the Great Leap Forward, July 1959

  Wu Han: “Hai Rui Scolds the Emperor,” June 19, 1959

  The Cultural Revolution

  The Sixteen Points: Guidelines for the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution

  Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong

  “What Have Song Shuo, Lu Ping, and Peng Peiyun Done in the Cultural Revolution?”

  Red Guard Memoirs

  Wang Xizhe, Li Zhengtian, Chen Yiyang, Guo Hongzhi: “The Li Yi Zhe Poster,” November 1974

  PART SEVEN

  The Return to Stability and Tradition

  37. Deng’s “Modernization” and Its Critics

  R. LUFRANO

  The Turn to Stability and Modernization

  Zhou Enlai: “Report on the Work of the Government,” delivered on January 13, 1975, at the First Session of the Fourth National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China

  Communiqué of the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, December 22, 1978

  Yu Qiuli: “The Relationship Between Politics and Economics”

  “Uphold the Four Basic Principles,” Speech by Deng Xiaoping, March 30, 1979

  “Building Socialist Spiritual Civilization,” Letter from Li Chang, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to a Member of the Party Central Committee, December 1980

  Office of the CCP Dehong Dai Nationality and Qingbo Autonomous Zhou Committee: “Several Questions in Strengthening and Perfecting the Job Responsibility Systems of Agricultural Production,” November 7, 1980

  Early Critiques of the Deng Regime

  Publication Statement, Beijing Spring Magazine, January 1979

  Wei Jingsheng: The Fifth Modernization—Democracy, 1978 (Kristina Torgeson)

  Democracy or New Dictatorship, Exploration, March 1979

  Wall Poster from the April Fifth Forum

  Hu Ping: “On Freedom of Speech,” Written for His Successful 1980 Campaign to Become Beijing University’s Delegate to the Haidian District People’s Assembly

  Wang Ruoshui: “Discussing the Question of Alienation”

  Wang Ruoshui: “In Defense of Humanism”

  Assessing the New Policies

  Deng Xiaoping: “Build Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”

  Chen Yun: Speech Given at the Chinese Communist National Representative Conference, September 23, 1985

  New Demands for Change and Democracy

  Fang Lizhi: Democracy, Reform, and Modernization

  Fang Lizhi: “Reform and Intellectuals,” Talk Given in 1986

  Fang Lizhi: “The Social Responsibility of Today’s Intellectuals,” Speech Given at Beijing University, November 4, 1985

  Li Xiaojiang: “Awakening of Women’s Consciousness”

  The New Authoritarianism

  Wu Jiaxiang: “An Outline for Studying the New Authoritarianism,” May 1989

  Rong Jian: “Does China Need an Authoritarian Political System in the Course of Modernization?,” May 1989

  Yan Jiaqi: “How China Can Become Prosperous”

  38. Twentieth-Century Christianity in China

  JULIA CHING

  Ma Xiangbo

  Religion and the State (Ruth Hayhoe)

  Religion and Culture (R. Hayhoe)

  Zhao Zichen

  “Present-Day Religious Thought and Life in China”

  Leadership and Citizenship Training

  Wu Yaozong

  “The Present-Day Tragedy of Christianity”

  “The Reformation of Christianity”

  The Christian Manifesto

  Wang Mingdao

  “We, Because of Faith”

  Wu Jingxiong: Christianity and Chinese Tradition

  “Beyond East and West”

  “The Lotus and the Mud”

  39. Reopening the Debate on Chinese Tradition

  The New Confucians

  Xiong Shili (Tu Weiming)

  Manifesto for a Reappraisal of Sinology and the Reconstruction of Chinese Culture

  Mou Zongsan’s Confucian Philosophy (JOHN BERTHRONG)

  The Sensitivity and Steadfastness of Humaneness (ren)

  Feng Youlan: “China—An Ancient Nation with a New Mission”

  The Continuing Critique of Tradition

  Bo Yang: “The Ugly Chinaman”

  Sun Longji: “The Deep Structure of Chinese Culture”

  Su Xiaokang and Wang Luxiang: “River Elegy,” a Television Documentary

  Li Zehou: “A Reevaluation of Confucianism” (Woei Lien Chong)

  Gu Mu: Confucianism as the Essence of Chinese Tradition

  Bibliography

  Index

  EXPLANATORY NOTE

  The names of contributors are indicated in the table of contents alongside the sections or selections that they are responsible for. At the end of each selection the sources of translations are rendered as concisely as possible; full bibliographical data can be obtained from the list of sources at the end of the book. Unless otherwise indicated, the author of the text is the writer whose name precedes the selection; the initials following each selection are those of the translator, as indicated in the table of contents. Where excerpts have been taken from existing translations, they have sometimes been adapted or edited in the interests of uniformity with the book as a whole.

  In translating Chinese terms there is often no single equivalent in English for pivotal words that have multiple meanings in the original. Simply to transliterate the original term would be an easy way to avoid having to choose among alternatives, but it would not be a solution for the great majority of readers who are unfamiliar with Chinese. Consequently, we have adopted a standard rendering and used it wherever possible but have allowed for variants (followed by the romanized term) to be substituted when necessary. At the end of volume 1 of Sources is
a glossary of key terms listed in romanized Chinese (pinyin and Wade-Giles) with alternate renderings in English; from this the reader can approximate the range of meanings that cluster around such pivotal terms.

  Chinese words and names are rendered according to the pinyin system of romanization. For readers unfamiliar with pinyin, it is useful to know that the consonants q and x are to be read as ch and hs, respectively. The Wade-Giles romanization is also given for names and terms already well known in that form, as are the renderings preferred by important modern figures and in common use (such as Sun Yat-sen). A comparative table of pinyin and Wade-Giles romanizations may be found at the end of the book. Indic words appearing in the chapters on Buddhism as technical terms or titles in italics follow the standard system of transliteration found in Louis Renou’s Grammaire Sanskrite (Paris, 1930), pp. xi–xiii, with the exception that here ś is regularly used for ç. To facilitate pronunciation, other Sanskrit terms and proper names appearing in roman letters are rendered according to the usage of Webster’s New International Dictionary, second edition unabridged, except that here the macron is used to indicate long vowels and the Sanskrit symbols for ś (ç) and ṣ are uniformly transcribed as sh. Similarly, the standard Sanskrit transcription of c is given as ch.

  Chinese names are rendered in their Chinese order, with the family name first and the personal name last. Dates given after personal names are those of birth and death; in the case of rulers, reign dates are preceded by “r.” Generally the name by which a person was most commonly known in Chinese tradition is the one used in the text. Since this book is intended for the general reader rather than the specialist, we have not burdened the text with a list of the alternate names or titles that usually accompany biographical reference to a scholar in Chinese or Japanese historical works.

  In the preparation of this volume for publication the editors have been especially indebted to the following for their expert assistance: Martin Amster, Renee Kashuba, Glenn Perkins, and Marianna Stiles.

  PART 5

  The Maturation of Chinese Civilization and New Challenges to Chinese Tradition

  Chapter 25

  THE CHINESE TRADITION IN RETROSPECT

  Although the Manchu conquest of China might have been expected to produce, under foreign rule, dramatic changes in Chinese life, it is a sign of the powerful inertial force of Chinese civilization—the magnitude of the society and the survival power of both its people and its culture—that so much of traditional thought and institutions persisted into the new era and, in fact, even lent stability and strength to the new regime. It is also a credit to the adaptability of the Manchus to their new situation.

  A key instance of this political and cultural survival was the early resumption of the civil service examination system, with the same basic curriculum that had been adopted, under Neo-Confucian influence, in the Mongol and Ming periods. Nothing else so radically conditioned the intellectual life of Qing China, since this curriculum based on the Four Books and Five Classics provided both the common denominator for educated discourse and the ground for further advances in classical scholarship, which became, in the Qing period, the greatest achievement of the cultural elite.

  Although in principle education was open to all, classical learning remained accessible only to the more leisured classes; commoners, most of them heavily engaged in manual labor, could not indulge in such time-consuming pursuits. True, basic literacy and popular culture shared many of the same Confucian values on the moral level, but farmers and craftsmen could only admire, and did not often share in, the higher forms of culture respected among the elite.

  Scholar-officials, however, had their own problems. As Confucian loyalists and survivors from the Ming, their consciences kept many of them from serving the new dynasty. At the same time, as upholders of Confucian ideal standards who blamed the fall of the Ming dynasty on its own lack of political virtue, the four major thinkers represented below, instead of commemorating and eulogizing, engaged in a searching critique not just of the Ming but of dynastic rule down through the ages—a critique of unprecedented depth and incisiveness. Given, however, the unchallengeability of Qing power and authority in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the fuller significance and effect of this critique of dynastic rule was not felt until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—if, indeed, it is not still to be felt.

  Of these same thinkers, three (Huang Zongxi, Lü Liuliang, and Gu Yanwu) were recognized as outstanding scholars in their own time, while Wang Fuzhi worked in great isolation and became widely appreciated only much later. Lu’s fate, however, was ironic. In the first decades of the Qing he was a powerful force in the revival of the Zhu Xi school and influenced leading Neo-Confucians who played a major role in the Kangxi emperor’s promotion of an official Zhu Xi orthodoxy. Yet when Kangxi’s successor discovered the politically subversive character of Lü’s commentary on Zhu Xi’s Four Books (see chapter 21) he engaged in a ruthless and almost totally successful proscription of Lü’s works.

  Meanwhile, alongside the promotion of the official orthodoxy, a broad movement of critical textual scholarship was developing, which, intellectually speaking, became the dominant scholarly trend (known as the Han Learning or Evidential Learning). Gu Yanwu was generally regarded as the progenitor and towering example of this movement, and his prestige endured into the twentieth century.

  In terms of their official standing and formative role in shaping official orthodoxy and cultural policy, other major figures like Lu Longji, Li Guangdi, and Zhang Boxing (most of them influenced to some degree by Lu Liuliang and identified with the so-called Song Learning), would have to be mentioned, but outstanding though they were in their own day, we pass them by here in favor of others whose significance transcends their own time.

  HUANG ZONGXI’S CRITIQUE OF THE CHINESE DYNASTIC SYSTEM

  Huang Zongxi (1610–1695) was the son of a high Ming official affiliated with the Donglin party who died in prison at the hands of the eunuchs. At the age of eighteen, after the fall of the chief eunuch, Wei Zhongxian, Huang avenged his father’s death by bringing to justice or personally attacking those responsible for it. Thereafter he devoted himself to study, took part in a flurry of political agitation at Nanjing just before the fall of the Ming dynasty, and then engaged in prolonged, but unsuccessful, guerrilla operations against the Manchus in southeast China. There is evidence that he even took part in a mission to Japan, hoping to obtain aid. After finally giving up the struggle, Huang settled down to a career as an independent scholar and teacher, refusing all offers of employment from the Manchu regime.

  Warfare being less total and intensive in those days, Huang was probably not forced to neglect his intellectual interests altogether during those unsettled years. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that his most productive years should have come so late in life. His first important work, Waiting for the Dawn (Mingyi daifanglu), was produced at the age of fifty-two. Thereafter he worked on a massive anthology of Ming dynasty prose and a broad survey of Ming thought, Mingru xuean, which is the first notable attempt in China at a systematic and critical intellectual history. At his death he was compiling a similar survey for the Song and Yuan dynasties. Huang’s range of interests included mathematics, calendrical science, geography, and the critical study of the classics, as well as literature and philosophy. In most of these fields, however, his approach is that of a historian, and this underlying bent is reflected in the fact that his most outstanding disciples and followers in the Manchu period also distinguished themselves in historical studies. Huang was an independent and creative scholar who questioned the predominant Neo-Confucian emphasis on individual virtue as the key to governance and instead stressed the need for constitutional law and systemic reform.

  Huang characterized dynastic rule as inherently “selfish,” rather than conforming to the Confucian ideal of governance in the public interest or common good (gong), and he also reaffirmed the traditional (especially Mencian) empha
sis on the critical remonstrating function of conscientious ministers. Yet he went further to insist on having a prime minister as executive head of the government (rather than the emperor, as was the case in the Ming period) and also on having schools at every level (including the capital) serve as organs of public discussion, with the emperor and his officials required to attend and listen to the airing of major public issues.

  The crises of the late Ming-early Qing evoked from other scholars, like Gu Yanwu, Lu Liuliang, and Tang Zhen, similar critiques of the dynastic system based on Confucian principles. None, however, produced as systematic and comprehensive a statement, expressed in such forceful language, as Huang. Unfortunately, under the strong, efficient rule of the Qing dynasty Huang’s forthright critique could be circulated only among a few scholars discreet enough not to publicize it widely or attract official repression. Only in the declining years of the Qing dynasty did reformers, both monarchist and republican, succeed in reprinting and circulating it as a native manifesto for constitutional change.

  WAITING FOR THE DAWN: A PLAN FOR THE PRINCE

  Huang’s Waiting for the Dawn (Mingyi daifanglu)1 is probably the most systematic and concise critique of Chinese imperial institutions ever attempted from the Confucian point of view. Besides dealing with the theory and structure of government, it takes up the problems of education, civil service examinations, land reform, taxation, currency, military organization, and eunuchs. Huang’s views on only a few of these can be set forth here.

  On the Prince

  In the beginning of human life each man lived for himself and looked to his own interests. There was such a thing as the common benefit, yet no one seems to have promoted it; and there was common harm, yet no one seems to have eliminated it. Then someone came forth who did not think of benefit in terms of his own benefit but sought to benefit all-under-Heaven and who did not think of harm in terms of harm to himself but sought to spare all-under-Heaven from harm. Thus his labors were thousands of times greater than the labors of ordinary men. Now to work a thousand or ten thousand times harder without benefiting oneself is certainly not what most people in the world desire. Therefore in those early times some men worthy of ruling, after considering it, refused to become princes—Xu You and Wu Guang2 were such. Others undertook it and then quit—Yao and Shun, for instance. Still others, like Yu,3 became princes against their own will and later were unable to quit. How could men of old have been any different? To love ease and dislike strenuous labor has always been the natural inclination of man.