Liang Qichao is a very special figure in the modern history of China. The "Reform Movement of 1898" advocated by him and Kang Youwei once promoted the process of modern history of China. However, after the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898, history made great strides, but he still stood in the same place, waving the flag and shouting for constitutional monarchy, which became a stumbling block to historical progress. History belongs to him for a short time, but his influence on China's modern history cannot be underestimated. Mao Zedong's reading and comments on Liang Qichao, his works and events left us many intriguing details, and also reflected the evolution of modern China thought from one side.
Respect and imitation
19 10 In the autumn, Mao Zedong was admitted to Dongshan Senior Primary School in Xiangxiang County. Here, he first saw Xinmin Cong Bao edited by Liang Qichao from his cousin Wen Yunchang's library. The first contact between Mao Zedong and Liang Qichao seemed accidental, but it was inevitable. At that time, influenced by the Reform Movement of 1898, Liang Qichao's name and theory were popular in China.
Mao Zedong was fascinated by the fresh contents published in Xinmin Cong Bao, such as Liang Qichao's article Xinmin Shuo, which he read very carefully and wrote a comment in On State Thought: "A formal and established country is a constitutional country, with a constitution formulated by the people and a monarch supported by the people; In those autocratic countries that have not been formally established, the laws and regulations are formulated by the monarch, and the monarch is not convinced by the people. The former, such as Britain and Japan today; The latter, such as China, has been stealing countries for thousands of years. " This is the earliest political work found in Mao Zedong so far, which shows that Mao Zedong has accepted the reformist thought at this time. Since then, Liang Qichao has become a respected figure in Mao Zedong. He not only studied Liang's thoughts and imitated Liang's writing style, but also gave himself a pen name "Ren Xue" (Liang Qichao's "Ren Gong").
19 1 1 In the spring of, Mao Zedong came to Changsha, the provincial capital, and was admitted to Hunan Provincial Middle School. Here, he saw the People's Daily published by the League, learned about the program of Sun Yat-sen and the League, and began to support the revolutionary ideas. Excited, Mao Zedong wrote an article and posted it on the school wall, advocating that Sun Yat-sen, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao should form a new government and oppose the autocratic Qing Dynasty. Mao Zedong told Edgar about this in 1936? Si Nuo said: "This is the first time I have expressed my political views, but this kind of political views is somewhat confusing. I have never given up my admiration for Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao. I don't know the difference between Sun Yat-sen and them. Therefore, I advocate in the article that Sun Yat-sen must be recalled from Japan as the president of the New Government, with Kang Youwei as the prime minister and Liang Qichao as the foreign minister! "
In February 2002, Mao Zedong, who had been a soldier for half a year, decided to continue his studies. Finally, he was admitted to Hunan Provincial High School (later renamed Provincial No.1 Middle School) with the first place. Answering the test question "which is more important, education or industry?" He took Liang Qichao's theory of "education as the main brain" as the starting point. It can be seen that Liang Qichao's way of saving the nation by opening the wisdom of the people and shaping the new people really occupied the methodological highland of Mao Zedong's thinking about China.
19 13 Spring, Mao Zedong was admitted to the Fourth Normal College of Hunan. Looking through Mao Zedong's classroom records from June 65438 to February 65438, we can find some famous sentences directly quoted from Liang Qichao's Theory of Xinmin, some experiences in solving the relevant disputes in Liang Qichao's Theory of Similarities and Differences in the Changes of National Character, and a comparison between the contents described in Liang Qichao's Revolutionary of Evolution and Chinese philosopher Yang Zhu, and so on. Perhaps because he was intoxicated with Liang Qichao's remarks, Mao Zedong was quickly seen by Yuan Zhongqian, a teacher in the Chinese language class of the Fourth Normal University, that his writing was deliberately imitating Liang, so he suggested that he learn from the articles of eight masters in Tang and Song Dynasties, especially Han Yu. Mao Zedong listened to the teacher's orders, bought an anthology of Mr. Changli, and carefully studied the style of ancient China.
Query and reflection
1965438+In February, 2004, the Fourth Normal College of Hunan Province was merged into the First Normal College. The First Normal School was a relatively democratic, enlightened and well-managed school at that time. Here, Mao Zedong got the guidance of excellent teachers such as Yang Changji, Xu Teli and li jinxi, laid a solid academic foundation, made a group of like-minded friends and gained initial experience in social activities. With the accumulation of knowledge, especially the baptism of social practice, Mao Zedong gradually began to form his own way of thinking and political views.
19151February 12 Yuan Shikai announced the implementation of the imperial system and changed the Republic of China into the "Chinese Empire". This perverse behavior has aroused opposition from all over the country, and even Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and Tang Hualong, who advocated constitutional monarchy at that time, responded. Mao Zedong immediately sent a letter to Xiao Zisheng, asking you to help Yang Du read The Theory of Constitutional Salvation, advocating constitutional monarchy and opposing * * *.
On June 6, 2006, Yuan Shikai, who had been emperor for 83 days, passed away. Li succeeded the president and announced the restoration of the provisional constitution in the first year of the Republic of China. Duan became the Prime Minister of the Cabinet and took control of the Beijing regime. Liang Qichao, who was involved in planning the war to defend the country, was worried that it would trigger a revolutionary crisis for a long time and turned to seek reconciliation between the north and the south. At this time, Mao Zedong didn't have a clear understanding of the northern warlords, so he agreed with Liang Qichao's idea. In late June, he rushed back to Shaoshan to visit his sick mother. On the way, the harassed Yugoslav army stopped him, thinking that the political situation should be stable. In the letters to Xiao Zisheng on July 6, 8 and 25, 438, it was clearly stated that it was not in favor of expelling the governor of Hunan who advised Yuan to proclaim himself emperor, believing that it would make the political situation unstable. "The disaster in Hunan Province is more serious than the Xinhai." "A murder, unresolved revenge, and the disaster in France, the most terrible, does not mean that this evil drama has really been staged." It can be seen that Liang Qichao's thought was not simply accepted, but he agreed with Liang's point of view through analysis. Moreover, he began to question some political behaviors of Liang Qichao. In his letter to February 9, 2006, he pointed out: "There are celebrities in the Yuan family, such as Wang, Liang, Zhang and Fan.
In August 2008, Mao Zedong came to Beijing. The extremely active ideological atmosphere here has aroused Mao Zedong's thirst for new ideas and further thinking on the road of saving the country. Marxism, Dewey's pragmatism, Russell's social reformism and Kropotkin's anarchism all influenced him. With the change of the current situation and environment, Marxism, the October Revolution and Chen Duxiu have all become the focus of Mao Zedong's attention. 1919 July 14, Hunan Federation of Students published Xiangjiang Review, with Mao Zedong as the editor and lead writer. On July 2 1 day, he published the article "People's Great Unity" in Xiangjiang Review, enthusiastically praising the October Revolution in Russia and demanding that workers, peasants, students, teachers, police and coachmen unite to carry out the revolution by imitating other countries. In this article, Mao Zedong not only stopped looking for evidence in Liang Qichao's works, but also showed the ideological influence of Marxism in the methodology of observing problems.
Mao Zedong's thought of provincial autonomy more directly expressed his independent thinking and opposition to Liang Qichao's related viewpoints. 1920 on June 3rd, wrote in the article "Full Autonomy and Semi-Autonomy": "I have always doubted the general organization of China for twenty years, so I am not particularly opposed to Wu's National Assembly, I am opposed to Liang Qichao's national constitution, and I am also extremely opposed to the North-South peace talks. I thought the minimum requirement was the separation of North and South. Further progress is the autonomy of the provinces. " In the same year165438+125 October, I wrote to Luo: "China is too big, and the emotional interests and people's wisdom of different provinces are uneven, so it is impossible for him to do well. From Kang Liangwei Xin to Sun Huang Revolution (both of them have their own considerable value), they have both tried and failed in this big organization. There is an urgent need to change the practice and start with small organizations in various provinces. Hunan people should regard Hunan as a province of the whole country. The small organizations in the provinces are well organized, and the national general organization is not afraid of him. "
Being able to reflect on everything in doubt is an important sign of maturity. Mao Zedong's understanding of Liang Qichao, from advocating to thinking calmly, did not generalize when asking questions, and made a concrete analysis of specific problems, which showed that his thinking method had made a big step forward.
Criticism and sublation
Mao Zedong, who took Liang Qichao as a model, finally believed in Marxism after studying, thinking and comparative analysis, and took Marxism as an ideological weapon to save the country and the people. 192 1 1 at the new year meeting of Changsha members of Xinmin society, Mao Zedong said frankly: "There are obviously two schools of thought to solve social problems: one advocates transformation and the other advocates improvement. The former is like Chen Duxiu, and the latter is like Liang Qichao and Zhang Sundong. " "Improvement is a patching method, and large-scale transformation should be advocated."
This paper studies, discriminates and thinks about Mao Zedong's choice of Marxist belief. His profound understanding of the basic stand, viewpoint and method of Marxism also enabled him to re-examine the thoughts of various schools including Liang Qichao, and criticize and sublate them. 1February 22, 939, wrote a letter to Zhang Wentian about Chen Boda's Philosophical Thought of Confucius: "This article and Lao Mo's philosophical works quoted many words from Zhang (), Liang (), Hu () and Feng (Youlan). I don't object to quoting them, but there should be a critical statement in the appropriate place to show this.
This letter embodies Mao Zedong's dialectical attitude of criticizing and inheriting ancient and modern ideology and culture by using the basic principles of Marxism. Treating Liang Qichao, whom he once respected, is no exception.
At the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee on the eve of the victory of the revolution, Mao Zedong said confidently: "We are not only good at destroying an old world, but also good at building a new one." It is not difficult to understand that in the process of destroying the old world, we need to focus on criticizing non-Marxist ideology and culture; When Marxism gains the guiding position of ideology and starts to build a new world, it needs to focus on protecting all kinds of beneficial ideology and culture to guide the dialectical unity of ideological unity and ideological and cultural diversity. Therefore, at the Supreme State Council on May 2, 1956, Mao Zedong officially announced that "letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend" is the guiding principle for developing science and prospering literature and art.
After the policy of "letting a hundred flowers blossom" was put forward, there was a feeling of incomprehension or even resistance within the party, and there were also many concerns among intellectuals. 1957 February, 2006 16, Mao Zedong called a meeting of the heads of the central newspaper, writers' association, academy of sciences and youth league in Yi Niantang, stressing the importance of the policy of "letting a hundred flowers blossom". He said that it was good to criticize Hu Shi at first, but later it was a bit one-sided, and everything about Hu Shi was erased. I'll write an article or two later to remedy it. Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao cannot be ignored. The demand for comprehensive evaluation of Hu Shi, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and others once again reflects the attitude towards their predecessors under the ruling conditions, and also reflects the respected position of Liang in his youth.
1on March 22nd, 958, Mao Zedong emphasized that we should dare to think, speak and do. He said that from ancient times to the present, young people with innovative ideas and new schools are all lacking in knowledge, and cited many examples at home and abroad, including Confucius, Jesus, Sakyamuni, Sun Yat-sen, Marx, Zhang Taiyan, Kang Youwei and so on. From this, Mao Zedong came to a conclusion: If young people master a truth, they are invincible, so old people can't compete with them. Liang Qichao was invincible when he was young. Always praising young and energetic people, but comparing Confucius, Ye, Shi, Sun, Ma, Zhang, Kang and Liang, saying that Liang Qichao was "invincible" when he was young is really unusual and full of nostalgia for youth. Less than a month later,1April 8, 958, in Wuchang, he talked with, and once again expounded Liang Qichao's ideological transformation, the difficulty of running a newspaper and the style of his articles, praising Liang as "the most appealing political commentator at that time" and his articles were "fresh, simple and popular".
Mao Zedong's reading of Liang Qichao, from imitation to questioning and reflection, and then to criticizing and sublating, embodies Mao Zedong's ideological process of gradually growing into a Marxist, and also embodies the historical materialism and dialectical spirit of treating all thoughts and cultures as a true Marxist.