After reading Lenin’s “The Tasks of the Young Communist League,” which mentions “being good at distinguishing the bad things in the old schools from the beneficial ones, and being good at selecting the necessary elements of Communism from the old schools,” can we also apply this to the ancient Chinese philosophies that developed such as Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, etc.? Should we extract the beneficial aspects of these philosophies? What is our view on the promotion of “outstanding traditional Chinese culture” by the Chinese authorities? (Side note: I am now preparing to continue studying the Outline of Marxist Philosophy. I think I can also share my learning journey and questions in a post, updating it long-term like JQR’s factory diary.)
Thank you, I understand roughly, I will go check it out
The “Chinese excellent traditional culture” promoted by Zhongxiu is mainly about advocating some extreme reactionary things, primarily Confucianism. And Daoism also mainly promotes its negative aspects.
One is the struggle between Confucianism and Legalism; this struggle is a national response to the progress and backwardness of China’s ideological and philosophical circles. Like Lin Biao and today’s reactionaries still promote Confucianism extensively, distort history, and praise reactionary figures such as Wang Shouren in ancient Chinese history. These must all be critically opposed and overturned. The other is the historical experience of the peasant revolutionary struggles in ancient China. These histories have also been dismissed and disparaged by the post-republican historiography and cultural circles after the restoration. For example, in the inaugural issue of this forum’s “Dawn,” the “Sacred Treasury” system of the base area was named after the system of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Ancient developed thoughts also discussed class. For example, Confucianism reflects the interests of slave-owning aristocrats (they want to maintain their rule, so they emphasize rites, restore the old rites of the Zhou Dynasty, and the benevolent love others, which is a love based on hierarchy, requiring each level to act according to its own demands, essentially the same as the relationship between ruler and minister, father and son). Legalists and soldiers defend the interests of emerging landlords (they advocate reform, develop new laws, promote agriculture and sericulture, emphasize military preparedness, and prepare for unification wars). Mohists represent the ideas of small bourgeoisie and artisans of the time (non-aggression, universal love oppose the destructive wars between slave owners, but they also proposed the need to oppose the hierarchy—attacked by Confucians as ‘without ruler or father’, emphasizing production). Taoists represent the interests of the small slave-owning class (unable to maintain the slave system, they can only passively evade struggles, advocating ‘non-action’ to govern, but also recognizing factors of change within social struggles, so some dialectical elements exist within the school). For these ideas, it is appropriate to choose the correct absorption and discard the dross, but for ideas like Confucianism, which is entirely dross (after all, the slave society at that time was completely rotten, and Confucianism still defended the interests of the large slave-owning class, with no room for progress, similar to the Catholic Church at the end of Western feudal society), there is no need to adopt them.
Oh, I see. Now the middle school textbooks deliberately ignore the class nature of these thoughts. At that time, I really believed their view that Confucian thought was reactionary.
A very classic example is in the Analects where it says “Speak less of faults, regret less in actions, and the blessings are within.” If this sentence is applied to officialdom, isn’t it saying “Say less when you have opinions, don’t speak out righteous words; do things decisively without leaving room for regret, so that you can be promoted and prosper”? Historically, aren’t those who do this all treacherous officials?
Revolutionary political parties will not speak words that prevent people from speaking or reflecting on their own mistakes.
It’s absolutely incredible, so much so that there’s no need to perform; it directly displays one’s class nature in its entirety.