Congrès Marx International VI, septembre 2010, Plenum 4, Zhang Shuangli

On the Decline of Concrete Utopias in China

(Zhang Shuangli, FudanUniversity, Shanghai, China)

Introduction: Aboutthree different meanings of utopia in the present China

In the present Chinese context, the term “utopia” has complicated meanings, all of which are closely connected with the Chinese understanding of Marxism. Briefly speaking, there are at least three main different meanings. Firstly, it is believed by the majority of Chinese people asa kind of unrealistic idea. In the post- Mao era, especially with the introduction of the market system into the Chinese society, more and more people began to believe that socialism is only an unrealistic idea in the present Chinese context. This belief has then beenstrengthened further by the discussions about “the end of history” in Chinese scholarship within the context of globalization and the collapse of other socialist countries. Secondly, it is understood by some Chinese scholars as a special belief about the future, which means both the Idea and the activity to realize the Idea. From the 80s of the last century, the Chinese scholars have begun to reflect about the condition of Marxism in China. Many of them emphasized that the Marxism as embodied in the socialist system in the Mao-era is actually a kind of pre-modern despotism. At the same time, there are also some other scholars who have tried to understand the specialness of Chinese Marxism by investigating the special context of the introduction of Marxism into China. And they have arrived at the conclusion that Marxism as a kind of “isms” introduced to China has been made into a special utopia. It is the belief about the final perfect end of the humanhistory and it necessarily means the activity to actualize it.Thirdly, it is believed by the new Maoists in China as the most radical critique of the present condition. Within the latest several years, there has been the revival of Maoism in China.For these new Maoists, Utopia is the slogan (the most influential website of these Maoists is named as “Utopia”). The term utopia has been literally translated by them as the place that does not exist. By this term, they mean that Maoism is about the Idea. But the concrete content of this new Maoism is not only directly about the Idea, but mainly about the present condition of the Chinese society in this capitalized world. Almost all the papers posted on the website are the radical critiques of the present condition. Usually, these critiques are not very theoretical, but full of emotion. The tone of these critiques is always both nationalistic and anti-capitalist.

In this paper, we will start from the above-mentioned second meaning of “utopia”. By questioning about how Marxism has been accepted as a special utopia in China, I will try to explain why Marxism has been creatively made into “the concrete utopia” in the Chinese context and what are the innate self-contradictions within it, that have resulted in its later decline in China. Then we will look at the two different faces of the present condition of Marxism in China: On the one hand, it is the fact that many Chinese people have stopped believing in Marxism. Connected with this is their apathy toward utopia; On the other hand, there has been the revival of Maoism in the recent several years. Connected with this is the emergence of the above-mentioned third meaning of utopia. By investigating into how these two faces are actually inter-connected, it would then be pointed out that both of them mean the decline of Concrete Utopias in China.

Part one: How Marxism has been accepted as a kind of utopia in China

As Chairman Mao has stated, with the success of the October Revolution in Russia, Marxism (and Leninism) have been introduced to China[1]. This means that with the success of the October Revolution, Marxism has become really influential in China. Actually, before then, there have already been some introductions to Marxism in China as a theory by some Chinese people who had the experience of studying or living overseas. But the point is that all of those efforts have not really become influential in China. After the October Revolution, Marxism has gradually become the real revolutionary power in China to change the whole life. But Why could Marxism have been so influential in China? To answer this question, we need first to understand the special context of its acceptance in China.Based on this, we will then go further to ask how thisspecial context has resulted in the special version of Marxism in China.

1, the Totalistic Anti-traditionalism and the introduction of Marxism as a kind of “isms” into China;

When Marxism was introduced to China after the October Revolution, China was experiencing a very important movement (many Chinese scholars think that it is the most important movement in the modern history of China), which is the May 4th movement (in the year of 1919). But actually the May 4th movement is not just one single movement; it is combination of both the May 4th movement and the New Culture movement. To speak briefly, the May 4th movement could be considered as a patriotic and nationalist movement. Facing the unbearable unfairness toward Chinaat the Paris conference after the end of the First World War, the Chinese people, starting from the young students, tried to voice out and to protest against both the imperialist powers and the totally impotent Chinese government. In the depth of the heart of those indignant people was the strong feeling that the whole Chinese nation had been in the vital crisis and that we really need to fight to save the nation, This patriotic movement happened within the New Culture Movement, which is longer (from 1915 to the late 20s in the last century) and deeper. In China, almost everyone knows that it is in the New Culture Movement that the Chinese intellectuals, under the influence of the western theories, have put forward the two important slogans: science and democracy. Because of this, some Chinese scholars hold that the New Culture movement is the movement that has really begun the process of enlightenment in China. But what is more important about this New Culture Movement is the other side of this, that is, the awareness of the deep crisis with the traditional Chinese way of living. Connected with this deep awareness is the strong feeling of the necessary responsibility on us to find out the new way for China to go. The direct reason for this awareness is the Chinese intellectuals’ strong belief in the Chinese version of Evolutionism and the rise of Anti-traditionalism.

A, the Chinese version of Evolutionism and the rise of Anti-traditionalism

Ever since the Opium War (1839), China has to directly face up with the power of the west. At the beginning, the Chinese people are still confident that they could make China stronger by integrating the western techniques as the functional techniques into the Chinese civilization. However, this has been proved as not working. In the Sino-Japanese war in 1895, Chinawas totally defeated. This means a lot to the Chinese scholars. On the one hand, this has strongly proved that Chinais now really in the terribly weak condition; on the other hand, many Chinese intellectuals at that time also know that Japan has become strong because Japan has learned from the west and changed not only technically, but politically and culturally. So, this war has forced the Chinese intellectuals to admit that China has to change totally.Within this context, two important currents that have been introduced to China were then transformed into their special Chinese versions and have resulted in the ethos of the radical Anti-traditionalism.

These two currents are evolutionism and nationalism. In China, the most important introducer of evolutionism is Yan Fu. He has beautifully translated T.H. Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics into Chinese. It was from this book and some of his important articles (for example: “On How to Become Powerful”) that almost all the other Chinese intellectuals learned about evolutionism, especially about its direct meanings to China. But if we read the articles or the Chinese translation of the book, we can clearly find that this evolutionism has already been twisted by Yan Fu. To borrow the American Scholar James Reeve Pusey’s words, evolutionism has been transformed into “it-is-up-to-us-ism”. Another important Chinese intellectual, Liang Qichao, who has been strongly influenced by Yan Fu’s introduction of evolutionism, has given us a very clear statement of this “it-is-up-to-us-ism”: “If we change, we will be changed. If we do not change, we will be changed. If changing we are changed, the power will be in our hands, and we will be able to preserve our country, our race and our religion. If not changing we are changed, then we give up the power of changes to others, who will harness us and drive us like beasts of burden. ”[2]From this statement, we can see very clearly that evolutionism has three important meanings for the Chinese mind at that time. Firstly, it helped the Chinese people to admit clearly that they were only one group (or one nation) among all the other nations in the world. This point is extremely important to the Chinese mind, because traditionally the Chinese people believe that their world was the only cultural world. Secondly, it helped the Chinese intellectuals to know more about the crisisand to be very clear about the responsibilities on them. Evolutionism is introduced to China as a science. It is the science to tell us our present position in the whole historical process. This position means the crisis of the survival of the Chinese nation.So, this evolutionary science has not brought about the passivity of the Chinese people, but the active attitude toward the present crisis. Facing this crisis,it is our own responsibilities to save the Chinese nation[3]. Thirdly, it helped the Chinese intellectuals to admit that we need to learn from the west. In other words, this evolutionary picture also pointed out the direction for China to go if she wants to finally win in the struggles for survival.

Taking these triple meanings together, we can find that this special evolutionary theory has provided the Chinese intellectuals with a black-and-white picture. On the one hand, there lies the backward condition of China; on the other hand, there lies the bright western world which is made up of the modern nation sates. And we are now just at the turning point between these two worlds. Whether we can finally go through this turning point is totally up to us. This particular picture has paved the way for the rise of the totalistic Anti-traditionalism in China. To speak very briefly, it has taken two different ways toward the radical Anti-traditionalism. On the one hand, some intellectuals claim that we should make this decisive change by learning from the western systemand criticizing the traditional Chinesesystem which is at the same time moral, political, social and cultural; on the other hand, some scholars try to re-interpret the hidden meaning of Confucianism to bring about the change.The latter has not really brought about the new understanding of Confucianism in China, but has weakened the traditional belief in the Confucian classics and the orthodoxy of Confucianism. It then re-strengthened the claimed for westernization. So, both of them have contributed to the rise of the radical ethos of totalistic Anti-traditionalism. But this standpoint of totalistic Anti-traditionalism does not mean the pure negation of China. It is the negation of the traditional Chinese system for the sake of the future of the Chinese nation. And just because of this, it is never a purely theoretical attitude. It always means the self-conscious commitment to the responsibilities on us. It is true that as the direct response to this standpoint, there has also appeared the cultural conservatism. But the latter is not a step beyond the Anti-traditionalism, but only the necessary response to it. In this sense, they are of the same level.

B, the difference between the “isms” that have been introduced into China

With this as the background, there happened the New Culture movement (The failure of the political revolution has directly led to the New Culture movement). This New Culture movement is at the same time both the radical critique of the Chinese tradition and the efforts to construct the new culture. To introduce all kinds of new ideas and theories into China was taken as an important step to construct the new culture in China. Thus this has been the time for various western ideas and theories to be introduced into China. This special condition is described as the flowing of all kinds of “isms” into China. To look at the difference among these “isms” could help us to see what is special with Marxism at that time and why it is this particular “ism” that has taken roots in the Chinese land.

Very loosely speaking, there are two kinds of “isms” that have been very influential at that time: liberalism and Marxism. During that time, anarchism, socialism and Marxism have not yet been differentiated very clearly. Only gradually, the essential difference between anarchism and Marxism has been made evident. So, generally it could be said that the most important difference among the “isms” is the difference between Liberalism and Marxism. Presently, this difference could be very easily imagined by us as the difference between the theory for the capitalist society (liberalism) and the theory against the capitalist society (Marxism). But this is not true of the condition in the New Culture Movement. By then, the Chinese intellectuals have already become very sensitive to both the strength of Capitalism and the weakness of it. With China as the direct victim of the Imperialist powers, it has been almost impossible that the Chinese intellectuals could believe in a theory which is simply for the Capitalist system. So, both the liberalism and Marxism are taken as the theory about the way tochange the Chinese society and to help it avoid the problems that necessarily exist in the westernCapitalist society. For example, one version of the liberalism that has been very influential in China then is John Dewey’s pragmatism.

The main difference lies in their different understandings about how to make that change happen. That is, they are different from each other in their answers to how to go through the turning point from this old world to the new world. It could also be said that they are two different ways to take the responsibilities on us. They are different from each other mainly in two aspects: the form of the change and the relationship between the intellectuals and “the people”. About the form of the change, liberalist scholars emphasized that the change could only be gradual because we can only solve the problems one by one based on the concrete investigations. But the Marxist scholars emphasized on the ultimate opposition between the old world and new world. Based on this, they argued for the radical revolution. This belief in revolution is then supported by both anarchism and the Marxist theory of “class struggles”.

About the relationship between the intellectuals and “the people”, the Marxists argued very strongly that there must be the identification between the intellectuals and the people. This is the precondition for any possible real change. So, they self-consciously differentiate them from the liberalist intellectuals who are only thinking about the problems as the scholars. Within the New Culture Movement, there has been the famous controversy between liberalism and Marxism, which is termed by themselves as the debate about “problems and isms”. During the debate, Li Da Zhao, the main thinker of Marxism at that time in China, pointed this out very powerfully: “I think that “problems” and “isms” can not be separated from each other. This is because the solving of every problem must rely on the common movement of the majority of the people. Then if we are going to solve a problem, we should try to make it the common problem for the majority people in the society. If we are going to make a social problem the common problem for the majority people, we should let the majority of the people who can solve this problem by their common efforts have a common idea, ism, first, which could be the standard (that is, an instrument) for them to decide how unsatisfactory their life is. Those facts that all of them feel unsatisfactory could then become the problems one by one, and possibly be solved. Otherwise, in spite that you study your problem, all the others would not feel any relations between them and it. That social problem will never be solved; the studying of that problem still could not influence the reality. ”[4] It is very clear that Li Dazhao is talking about how to unify and motivate people.This was taken as the decisive precondition to make that change happen. It is also clearly pointed out that this could only be possible when we have already pointed out the final end for the people. That is, the change is only possible when we have believed in a utopia.