Originally published at: 到底要我守规矩，还是要我做奴隶 – 曙光
Should I Follow the Rules or Be a Slave
Editorial Board of League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Proletariat
About a year ago, I was still a petty bourgeois student focused on speculating in assets and pursuing a “bright future,” trying to improve my academic level through self-arranged study. But the bourgeois university I attended not only restricted students’ “freedom to organize their study plans and time,” using rigid curricula and heavy workloads to facilitate control over students, but also intensified the implementation of “militarized and standardized” management modes, restricting students’ daily routines and habits, using rules and regulations to “manage, block, and pressure” them. As a result, I spontaneously developed rebellious feelings towards the school’s management measures, and wrote on my notebook: “Should I follow the rules or be a slave?”
Almost a year later, when I saw this sentence again, my thoughts had changed greatly compared to the past, and I had more reflections on the environment of my school.
In the current capitalist education system, the so-called “school rules and discipline” are a form of physical and ideological restraint and oppression of students. The bourgeoisie formulates such rules to brainwash students and cultivate a batch of students that meet their needs.
“The class that controls the means of material production also controls the means of spiritual production.”[1] In a society with private ownership, the exploiting class monopolizes almost all means of production and owns the vast majority of social wealth, thus achieving a comprehensive monopoly in the field of culture and education. Today’s capitalist society, although workers and their children have gained certain rights to education, the nature of the education they receive is fundamentally different from that of the bourgeoisie and their children. For example, my school is a key high school in the county, where the vast majority of students are children of the proletariat or petty bourgeoisie, with bourgeois children making up only a small fraction. Compared to other county and city-level high schools, this school has the largest number of teachers and students, and ranks top in “educational standards.” However, regarding the so-called “social mobility” promoted by education—through the college entrance examination (which is a “fair” exam that is highly provocative and seductive to most petty bourgeois students lacking ideological awareness)—most students’ illusions of “class leap” end in disappointment. Children of the bourgeoisie do not need to inherit family wealth or maintain economic status through this form; children of the proletariat cannot “leap over the dragon gate” through the college entrance exam, and the descendants of the petty bourgeoisie, living comfortably, ultimately cannot escape bankruptcy.
It is evident that the purpose of such schools is to cultivate a large number of obedient, non-rebellious workers who create surplus value for capitalism, and to provide more “qualified slaves” for the future bourgeoisie to intensify exploitation. Therefore, all oppressive military-style management measures adopted by these bourgeois schools have their social basis—the ongoing, current, and future oppression and exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie over the past decades and into the future. Such management is a prelude and foreshadowing of the hardships students will face when they enter social production. As they themselves declare: “If you can’t endure the hardships of studying now, you will have to endure the hardships of society later.” Unknowingly, their true intention is to let students now happily endure the “hardship of learning,” and in the future, willingly endure the “social hardship” caused by an unfair social system.
From my observations, these bourgeois schools share some common features, summarized as follows:
1. Pedagogical Content in the Form of Clichés
The bourgeois universities teach cliché knowledge to select the “talents” (servants) most capable of serving the bourgeoisie, choosing from many petty bourgeois students the “excellent” and “loyal” lackeys to help maintain bourgeois order. Therefore, they do not need students to learn “independent thinking,” only to recite dogmas on the books faithfully—just like devout Christians singing hymns in church.
Students memorize countless bizarre concepts, theorems, and formulas, and then test their knowledge through exam questions that are based on the examiners’ arbitrary assumptions with no real basis. Their natural science studies are nothing but fanciful illusions, cobbled together strange theories. Their social science studies are just “words and phrases” dug out from old history books, or “meritorious deeds” sung in praise of “wise and virtuous rulers.” A few concepts, a few theorems and formulas, and a few praises of “peace and prosperity” construct a fragile, thin world for students. Armed with paper weapons, students pass through exams at the bourgeois university, but in real life, they repeatedly fail.
2. Extremely Strict Campus Discipline and Enforced Militarized Management
Infamous Hengshui High School has established a crazy militarized management mode that exhausts all students’ nerves and muscles, proudly called the “Hengshui Model.” Currently, the “Hengshui Model” has been promoted to most schools in Hebei, Henan, Shandong, and some other provinces. This model is famous for a set of strict rules regulating students’ routines. In this mode, schools not only strictly control students’ study time but also severely restrict time for eating, sleeping, bathing, and using the toilet, controlling every aspect of students’ lives without any blind spots.
The slogan “Freedom to Defecate” is widely circulated among students, reflecting the brutal oppression of bourgeois universities, where even the most basic physiological needs cannot be met. Due to inadequate restroom facilities, students find it a luxury to go to the toilet during short breaks. Meanwhile, the school strictly forbids students from requesting leave to go to the toilet during class, considering such behavior as misconduct, and including it in the performance assessment of class teachers. As a result, many students suffer greatly. Weak petty bourgeois students have long resented the fascist-like management, but dare not openly oppose it, only petitioning the school under the banner of “Freedom to Defecate.” Such oppressive measures extend to food, routines, hygiene, hairstyles, and clothing. All complaints are violently suppressed by the school with reasons like “Students must obey school rules” and “Students who violate school rules will also violate national laws later.” My aunt once told me about her work experience: during a hot summer in Shenzhen, Guangdong, she was required to wear adult diapers and work on an assembly line for eight hours without eating or drinking, performing repetitive, monotonous, mechanical actions like an animal... Combining this with my own school experience, I understand more clearly what kind of people current education aims to cultivate and whom it serves.
Lenin wrote in “The Tasks of the Youth League”: “The task of truly establishing a communist society is to be undertaken by the youth.”[3] After the socialist revolution, the previous generation eliminated the foundation of capitalist lifestyle, and the youth must build socialism on this ruins. To accomplish this task, youth must learn. How should youth learn, and what kind of youth should socialism cultivate? If they only talk about “learning communism,” treat book knowledge as dogma, and do not apply it in practice, they will fail to understand and integrate knowledge, and cannot join the broad masses of laborers or develop communist morality. The capitalist society aims to cultivate such a group of people who read books blindly, “Old schools always say they want to cultivate people with various knowledge, teaching general sciences. We know this is a lie because the entire society’s foundation for survival and maintenance is dividing people into classes—exploitors and the exploited. Naturally, all schools in the past were soaked in class spirit, only teaching bourgeois children knowledge. Every word in these schools is fabricated based on bourgeois interests. The youth of workers and peasants are more like slaves to the bourgeoisie than students—being educated to serve the bourgeoisie, creating profits for their masters without disturbing their peace.”
Great leader Lenin vividly depicted the real scene of militarized management in schools today. As mentioned earlier, bourgeois children do not need to work hard in their studies; they only need to understand the “class spirit of old schools,” learn how to inherit their parents’ legacy, and oppress and exploit others. The young generation of workers and peasants in old schools learn only useless clichés and obedience, detached from labor practice, deeply poisoned by bourgeoisie, strictly following bourgeois rules, and lacking deep feelings for the working people. Although they are slaves, they have little spirit of resistance. As for children of petty bourgeoisie, there are only two paths—becoming oppressors who enslave others or oppressed who are enslaved. Although some can realize “leaping over the dragon gate” through crazy speculation in studies, most will ultimately join the oppressed masses. In short, the bourgeois order is reinforced through the education of old schools.
3. Emphasis on Extreme Reactionary Ideological Education
Capitulation to students by the bourgeoisie is not only reflected in daily behavior norms but more importantly in the “ideological and moral education” that is widely emphasized in current schools. Based on my understanding, the content of this education mainly includes several aspects:
① Confucian feudal思想 centered on filial piety, hierarchy, and the Doctrine of the Mean
“In the continuous development of Chinese-style capitalism, capitalist private relations and Confucian思想 reflecting these relations have developed together... The bourgeoisie, in order to ensure the stability of this modern奴隶制-based capitalist exploitation, must also maintain the feudal patriarchal system and paternal lineage inheritance system that support this制度, and they will inevitably promote theories that glorify reactionary Confucianism...”[5] As a mouthpiece of the middle-revisionist government, bourgeois universities secretly and openly instill Confucian思想 into students from various aspects. On the surface, textbooks and questions are filled with “the essence of Chinese traditional优秀文化”—Confucian思想. I once encountered a Chinese language reading comprehension question that used two materials to introduce the contribution of Confucian思想 to the “Marxist Chinese化 development.” The first material distorted Engels’ remarks, arguing that “modern socialism, like any new doctrine, must start from existing思想 materials,” forcibly claiming that Marxism in China originated from Confucian文化. If the first material is merely a fallacious argument, the second material’s conclusion is shamelessly exposing the true face of contemporary Confucian学. “The process of Marxist Chinese化 is actually carried out on the土壤 of Confucian culture. Without Confucian culture, there can be no Marxist Chinese化. ‘Chinese化’ in a certain sense is the Sinicization of Marxism.” The revisionist official writers see clearly! They openly declare on students’ exam papers that the Chinese capitalist system and Confucian思想 are intertwined. On the other hand, secretly, the school uses that decayed仁义道德 and the soft knife of human relations (teachers teach “smooth ways of dealing with the world”) to numb and erode contemporary youth; using subtle hierarchy and respect for seniors to restrain students (“Schools have their own arrangements, we cannot change them, so don’t complain, just adapt to society”—a famous saying of my class teacher); using filial piety—“Obey your parents’ commands”—to educate students (“Don’t let down your parents’ hopes, study hard,” “Think of your parents when tired,” “I love studying, studying makes my mom happy”). These subtle ideological influences greatly damage the undeveloped creativity, revolutionary spirit, and fighting spirit of youth, making students dare not oppose unreasonable school systems or fight against their parents. They stifle new things in their infancy, thus maintaining and prolonging reactionary and decayed old things.
② Patriotic education with extreme nationalism and revisionist思想
After the new college entrance examination reform, the education field has become even more rotten and reactionary. The curriculum frequently mentions “patriotic education,” “cultivating patriotism,” and “national identity,” promoting “the superiority of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics,” attempting to turn a large number of petty bourgeois students who are detached from social production practice into “Little Pink” and “mindless patriots,” i.e., social chauvinists. This is preparing for imperialist wars of aggression and expansion that the middle-revisionist government will launch in the future. In history, politics, and Chinese language classes, various toxic weeds flourish, with teachers as reactionary mouthpieces endlessly discussing “the superiority of the Chinese nation,” “the superiority of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics,” and other falsehoods. For example, they boast about China’s victory in the recent Sino-US trade war, claiming the US dares not provoke; many developing countries learn from China’s “experience” and “model,” and China’s peacekeeping troops maintain world peace, becoming an important force for global peace and development... These baseless “boasts” and exaggerated language convince most students and evoke “national pride” and “patriotic feelings”! This makes me realize how shallow and pathetic most petty bourgeois students are, as they only focus on their “little territory” and are unaware of the wider world. The Great Firewall also reduces their access to real domestic information. Students only see a peaceful China and a chaotic foreign world. Young Marxists should pay more attention to current domestic and international situations, avoid being blinded by narrow perspectives, and understand the real world through various channels and aspects. As Flame said: “The petty bourgeoisie must reform itself to become a revolutionary class.”[6] I do not want to become an ignorant “patriot” who cheers blindly for “China’s greatness” under teachers’ incitement, manipulated and used by the bourgeoisie. Such “patriots” are actually traitors helping the exploiting class oppress the masses.
In addition, some teachers’ remarks contain many extreme nationalist and racist contents. For example, hatred of Japan, contempt for the Japanese people, claiming that Japanese nature is aggressive, and that the Japanese are naturally fascists supporting imperialism; hatred of Korea, claiming that Korea only copies China’s excellent traditional culture and is a “thief country”; contempt for Black people, claiming they are inherently lazy and deserve poverty, and that Black existence is a waste of African resources; disdain for Vietnam, Myanmar, India, and other countries, calling them ungrateful and disloyal to China, supporting US imperialism. These teachers also promote weaponism—“China has nuclear weapons, so they dare not provoke”—supporting “great power armaments,” and advocating arms races. Such remarks are rampant.
This kind of teachers are worker aristocrats nurtured by monopolist bourgeoisie. Lenin said, “Imperialism is the period when the ‘great’ nations, which enjoy privileges, oppress other nations and divide the world. A small part of the loot obtained from this privilege and oppression undoubtedly falls into the hands of some petty bourgeois and the aristocrats and bureaucrats of the working class.”[7] Such property-owning classes are happy to support imperialist colonization and expansion, oppressing other nations, dreaming of enjoying the privileges and loot of being a “strong” country and oppressor. The worker aristocrats are fully bourgeoisified in life and thought, standing against the people’s revolution, trying to maintain and consolidate their privileges, and seeking crumbs from the monopoly bourgeoisie of their own country. They are the ruling foundation of modern imperialism. These teachers are like pastors singing hymns for the bourgeoisie in churches, dulling students’ resistance with dreams of comfort and sacrificeless illusions, thus consolidating bourgeois rule.
Now most students accept these views, fantasizing that through the college entrance exam they can become petty bourgeois upper class or worker aristocrats, dreaming of their country plundering more colonies and sharing the loot of monopoly capitalists. Just like the sincere words they write in their Chinese essays—“Our youth will have great achievements and will do great things.”[8] They are praying and swearing loyalty to the middle-revisionist government. Despite imperialist wars strengthening the power of the monopoly bourgeoisie, causing many petty bourgeois to inevitably go bankrupt, they continue to deceive themselves with this illusion and live in self-deception.
③ Empty Promises of “Fighting Spirit”
They always shout “The era is promising,” demanding that youth “strive to be capable,” but what does “capable” mean? Teachers always say “Work hard in your ordinary position,” the core socialist values say “Dedication,” and Xi Jinping, the leader of the middle-revisionist government, says “Roll up your sleeves and work hard!” Is this what today’s education for youth should pursue? It’s utterly ridiculous! In bourgeois universities, because students’ grades are directly linked to teachers’ performance, reactionary teachers are happy to use “youth’s fighting outlook” to motivate students to “study independently,” urging them to constantly strive to create benefits for themselves. The internal reason is that the change of things depends on internal factors, and external factors are conditions for change. This outlook on struggle is based on the hope that students will use the college entrance exam to maintain their petty bourgeois class status or even become worker aristocrats. Thus, they form a “mutually beneficial relationship,” producing a so-called “precious” (actually disgusting and hypocritical) “teacher-student relationship.”
This kind of deception is also widely used by capitalists in society. Capitalists give small favors to workers, “paint big pies,” promote “hard work leads to wealth,” and advocate “ownership consciousness,” “treat the enterprise as home”... All these acts are to deceive workers into thinking they share interests with capitalists and can benefit from their efforts, thus striving hard. In reality, even if workers sweat blood for the prosperity of the enterprise, capitalists will never fulfill even a penny of the promises they made.
In the closed school environmentHere, the bourgeois education's oppression and indoctrination of petty-bourgeois students are pervasive. The road of ideological transformation for China's petty-bourgeoisie is long and arduous, and overthrowing the reactionary and decayed bourgeois education system is a heavy task. Although various difficulties objectively exist, the truth of Marxism tells us that "the road is tortuous, but the future is bright." All decayed things, even if they seem powerful for a time, are merely stumbling blocks on the road of historical progress, having lost their rationality for existence, and becoming things on the decline. When they compete with new things, they will inevitably fail completely and perish. Even if new things are temporarily weak and imperfect, because they conform to the laws of historical development, they will inevitably grow stronger and improve through struggle, ultimately defeating decayed things. “路虽迩（ěr），不行不至” The first step in this "journey" is to carry out resolute ideological struggle, transform one's own thoughts, and continuously use Marxism to guide one's life and study. In an environment filled with bourgeois weeds, we must wield the blade of Marxism to cut through thorns and strive to become progressive revolutionary intellectuals. - Marx, Engels: "The German Ideology," *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, Volume 3, first Chinese edition, People's Publishing House, 1960. ↑ - Lenin: "The Tasks of the Youth League," *Collected Works of Lenin*, Volume 31, People's Publishing House, 1958. ↑ - Same as above. ↑ - Flame: "The Road of China's Future Revolution," second edition, third draft. ↑ - Flame: "The Road of China's Future Revolution," second edition, third draft. ↑ - Lenin: "The Bankruptcy of the Second International," *Collected Works of Lenin*, Volume 21, People's Publishing House, 1959. ↑ - Xi Jinping: "Speech at the Symposium with Outstanding Youth Representatives from All Walks of Life on May 4, 2013," *Selected Important Documents Since the 18th National Congress* (Part 1), Central Literature Publishing House, 2014. ↑ - Xun Kuang: "Xunzi · Self-cultivation." ↑
