The 1949 Revolution Was Not the Victory of a Political Idea

If the thought remolding campaign was in fact absurd – and indeed it was so – then how was it actually able to take place? Were not we ourselves the ones who carried out thought remolding with extreme earnestness during those years? Nowadays, when people discuss their own behavior during the “Cultural Revolution,” they sum it all up with such epithets as “immaturity” and “fanaticism.” Yet these two expressions cannot really explain much of anything.

At this juncture, the discussion needs to begin from how Marxism had become so popular in China, and how the Communist revolution gained victory in mainland China. Of course, this section can present only an explanation in outline.

Ever since the late Qing Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898, an antiquated China has continually harbored the impulse to fervently pursue modernity or modernization. This sort of impulse easily prompts the ordinary person to adopt the attitude of “whatever's new is worth pursuing”; if it is new, it is good – if it is new, it is correct. The Chinese people discarded the view of history as cyclical or reverting to a distant past, and accepted an evolutionary view of history. According to this latter type of view of history, the movement of history is seen as a process of accumulation of humankind's achievements. When Marxism and socialism were first brought into China, they were crowned with the laudatory title of “the newest theories.” Very few people realized that these two isms were destructive and negating with respect to the Western system of liberty and democracy. Most people mistakenly thought that Marxism was a cure that was based on preserving the achievements of the past (and they viewed this preservation as a matter of course), and a remedy that offered effective treatment for the major shortcomings of their existing society – so that society could attain a more perfect condition.

Without a doubt, the Russian October Revolution played a decisive role in strengthening the dissemination of Marxism within China.