No More Learning

22 Here was the dichot- omy (relived by Hu and George Chen) between the "irrational past" and the "rational future. " And in the accompanying literary
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renaissance, the "new youth" were urged to express themselves in clear, forceful, conversational language--"in the living language of the people"--rather than in the effete and frequently obscure clas- sical style. 23
This was precisely the direction in which the modern student wished to go. His group identity had come into being with modern schools and universities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The emergence of a Youth Movement gave him sudden prominence. The universities and upper middle schools offered him a forum for his rebellion, and an identity to challenge that of the filial son (as was true for Hu and George Chen). Fre- quently feeling persecuted by his family (and sometimes, like Hu, suffering at the hands of members of older generations made des- perate by the crumbling of the world they had known) the modern student plunged eagerly into the new group life. Thus, a celebrated and widely-read novel of the thirties, The Family, whose story is laid during the time of the New Tide, describes the young hero's isolation and misery when among family members: "He was sud- denly overwhelmed by a strange feeling of solitude. It was as if all the other members of his family were far away, as if they lived in a different world. He felt cold, as though he were oppressed by un- speakable sorrow and anguish," and contrasts this with his joy and trust when working among his friends for the new ideals they shared.
Here he feels that he is not an outsider, not a lonely man. He loves the other young men around him; they love him. He understands them; they understand him. He can trust them; they can trust him. 24
Although these feelings are in many ways very similar to those experienced by generations of Westerners as they emancipate them- selves from family control, this youth identity was in China a vitally important part of the cultural countertrend. The term ch'mg-m'en, "youth," which had little significancein the past, took on a new and revealing meaning; it came to suggest articulate young advocates
(including women, and to some extent peasants and laborers, rather than only male gentry-literati) of political radicalism and social reform: new generations of youth who married later, often resisting their parents' marital arrangements for them, and who demanded independent lives physically and emotionally separate from parental control. 25
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Almost overnight the modern student seemed to step into an identity which allowed him to be active rather than passive, which offered him a sense of logic and purpose rather than meaningless compliance with tradition, and an opportunity for self-realization rather than self-denial. So strong was the reaction against Con- fucianism, and so timely the New Tide's appeal, that the Chinese student movement during the transitional period achieved a power and influence unmatched by any similar movement in the modern world. This power was demonstrated in the celebrated "May 4th Movement" of 1919, in which student demonstrations sparked an effective national protest against the humiliating Versailles Peace Treaty; in the "May joth Movement" of 1925, another mass demon- stration against imperialism; and in the continuous student agita- tion against the Nationalist Government (in which Hu and Grace Wu participated) prior to the Communist takeover. The first of these, the 1919 May 4th Movement, was particularly significant as a turning point: as one authority put it, "Henceforward, agitation by students gave an ever more powerful impetus to the release, slow or violent, of the forces of change in China. "26
In simultaneouslyrebelling against his family and usurping social authority, the modern student was being far from filial, and this was bound to cause him suffering. Even if he went on to become
(like Hu) an extreme rebel, an avenger, or a would-be martyr, the filial son within him was likely to remain very much alive. After thousands of years, it was not to be easily destroyed. In this respect, the modern student's inner life resembled the state of his country: immobile tradition, petrified into traditionalism, existed side-by- side with iconoclastic and totalistic revolutionary urges. Indeed, the psychological strength of the filial tradition was attested to by the immense energies necessary to attack it: that part of the past which resides within oneself is most difficult to sweep away.
No one expressed this inner dilemma more powerfully than Lu Hsun, the greatest of modern Chinese writers and the leading literary spirit of the New Tide Movement. His short story, "The Diary of a Madman/' which appeared in The New Youth in 1918, is one of the most effective condemnations of traditional Chinese society ever written. The author speaks through his hero, a mad- man-sage, who, in his persecutory fears, evokes a twilight world be- tween delusion and reality. The story's theme is the "man-eating"
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nature of traditional Chinese society, a theme which is expressed on several simultaneous levels of symbolism. The hero notices the threatening faces of the people around him, and from various bits of evidence concludes that they are going to kill and eat him. Wondering what he has done to cause their enmity, he decides that it must result from his earlier rebellion:
Twenty years ago I trampled the daily account book [a derogatory al- lusion to the Classics] of Mr. Hoary Tradition under my feet. . . . I did not thinlc that I could be considered a wicked man, but . . . I am no longer so sure. They seem to think so . . . they have a way of brand- ing anyone they don't like as a wicked man.
In a further quest for understanding, he studies ancient history. He finds that despite the high moral claims ("over every page was scrawled the words 'Benevolence and Righteousness'"), in reality "the book was nothing but a record of man-eating"; and that "this world in which I had moved about for half a lifetime has been for over four thousand years a man-eating world. " He thinks of can- nibalistic practices which actually occurred in Chinese society and decides, "Everyone wants to eat others but is afraid of being eaten himself, and so everyone looks at everyone else with such profound distrust and suspicion. " The leader of the man-eaters around him, he discovers, is none other than his older brother (the father's representative in the family, and here a symbol of family authority); he decides to begin with his brother, first in "cursing man-eating men," and then in converting them from their evil ways. But his pleas ("y? u must repent . . . change at once . . . you must know that the future has no place for man-eating men") are ignored-- out of wickedness and because of the habit of rationalization. "Some felt that it had always been so and that it was as it should be, while others knew that it was wrong, but wanted to eat just the same. "
Only then does he come to a terrible realization that he too is among the guilty. He recalls his older brother's having taught him an old principle of filial piety: the belief (which really has existed) that if a parent is sick, the child should cut off a piece of his own flesh, boil it, and feed it to the parent as medicine. Since this brother was in charge of the family at the time of his sister's death, he decides (with the logic of a madman-sage) that "they ate my
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younger sister"; and since he also partook of the family meals, "it is not at all impossible that I had myself eaten a few slices of my sister's flesh! " He comes to know "how difficult it is to find a true and innocent man," The only hope lies with the young, and the story ends: "Maybe there are still some infants that have not yet eaten men. Save, save the infants. " 27
Commentators have rightly emphasized this story's assault upon traditional Chinese society, but they have overlooked something else in it which is equally important: the desperate psychological plight--the intolerable anger and overwhelming sense of guilt--of the man who has chosen the path of rebellion. The story's hero is burdened by three great sins: first, having participated in and "tasted" the rewards of the "man-eating" society which he now condemns; second, defying four thousand years of authority in mak- ing this condemnation; and third, harboring within himself such explosive hatred.
Through his imaginative use of his hero's psychosis, Lu Hsun made contact with the emotions of the Chinese modern student as no other creative writer had before or has since. "The Diary of a Madman/' described as "the overture and finale" of his writings, evoked a sensational response. Young intellectuals found "man- eating" an apt description of their own attitudes toward their filial heritage, and the psychotic's suffering an expression of their own pain.
The antitraditional passions of the New Tide Movement--in both its political and literary expressions--set the tone for the en- tire transitional period. Emotions and ideas which had been smol- dering for several previous generations were now forcefully artic- ulated on a mass scale, and they continued to be shared and reinforced by succeeding generations of modern students until the Communist takeover in 1948-49. But the undermining of the gen- eral principle of filial piety (which the New Tide accelerated rather than initiated), far from satisfying the widespread ideological hunger, created an even greater ideological vacuum. Chinese intel- lectuals sought a more comprehensive set of beliefs and a more spe- cific program of action.
What psychological characteristics did they require of a unifying ideology they might embrace? Any such ideology would have to be rebellious in tone to encourage full expression of great hostility,
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to offer some relief for feelings of guilt, and to provide a solution to the broad crisis in identity which I have described. It would have to be a "modern" (and therefore Western) movement, and offer a program for economic development as well as some form of popular participation in government. It would inevitably call for a national resurgence achieved by casting off both Confucianism and Western imperialism. Consequently it had to supply some way to attack the past and yet feel pride in it, to condemn the West and yet use Western ideas to find a solution to Chinese problems. This was a big order, and contending ideologies were tortuously examined, experienced, and refashioned in a series of desperate attempts to find answers to problems which seemed always deepened rather than resolved by time.
The modern student (both during and after his student days) was confronted by three ideological alternatives, two of them or- ganized movements: the Chinese versions of Nationalism, liberal democracy, and Communism. Without attempting to trace a full history of any of these, we may ask to what extent each was able to satisfy the psychological requirements just mentioned.
By Nationalism, I mean the revolutionarymovement initiated by Sun Yat-sen, and subsequently embodied in Chiang Kai-chek's leadership of the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party. Both Sun and Chiang won great personal acclaim; their call for a strong, modern Chinese government was supported fervently by modern students as well as by much of the rest of the Chinese population. Just after Sun's death, which occurred during the period following the May 3oth incident of 1925, Chiang brought the Nationalist movement to its greatest momentum and highest point of popularity. The "Second Revolution" of 1926-27 was successfully carried out in the midst of a wave of popular sentiment, mass demonstrations, and boycotts of Japan and the W est. The atmosphere was violently anti- imperialist, and therefore anti-Western.
Shared angers and shared hopes did at first unite intellectuals and peasants. But Nationalism's effectiveness as an ideology vir- tually stopped here: it was able to gain the allegiance of modern students, but as these students matured into harassed intellectuals they could not find within it a sustained program or a set of ideas to satisfy their emotional urges and their rational standards. Sun's "three people's principles" (Nationalism, People's Rights or De-
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mocracy, and People's Livelihood) were acceptable enough but amorphous, and only the first was convincingly put into action. These principles came to be more a catechism recited by school children than a set of living beliefs. Nationalism took its forms from both Western liberalism and Russian Communism, but in a way which was frequently devoid of the inner meaning. It placed great stress upon modernization, but at the same time it joined forces with the traditionalists in hollow and ritualistic revivals of ancient Confucian values. The modern student usually found this combination of filial piety and Westernization an incompatible ideological admixture, which intensified rather than solved his guilt and identity problems. Increasingly, the intellectual drew a sharp line between himself and the bureaucrats, financiers, and mili- tary men of the Nationalist regime, and looked elsewhere for his ideological nourishment. Nationalism was indispensable to him, but he found in it no more than half an ideology.
The failure of liberal democracy is a much more complex story. By liberal democracy I mean that loose tradition developed in Eu- rope and America which advocated social reform, parliamentary government, and full expression of individual rights. It would be too facile to state categorically, with retrospective wisdom, the reasons why it could not have succeeded, although it did face extraordinary problems in meeting existing emotional demands. Its achievements in China were in fact considerable. It supplied the original inspiration for China's trend toward Westernization dur- ing and before the transitional period, and was the model for indi- vidual expression which lay behind the attack on filial piety.
Ch'en Tu-hsiu's ringing declarations inaugurating the New Tide movement, for instance, were inspired by the Manchester liberalist- like philosophy which he then espoused,28 although he later shifted his position and became one of the founders of the Chinese Com- munist Party (and still later was deposed as one of its first villains). Hu Shih, also a leading spirit in the New Tide, remained one of the most articulate spokesmen for liberal democracy throughout the transitional period. A disciple of John Dewey, he sought in the Chinese past a basis for the pragmatic, scientific approach of his teacher; and he accompanied the American philosopher on his celebrated and highly influential lecture tour of China in 1919-20. And Lu Hsun, although deified by the Communists and certainly
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a militant leftist, held fast to the liberal principles of "the right to life, the right to food and shelter, and the right to the unlimited development of the individual. " 29
Spread by missionaries, by Western and Chinese educators, and by Chinese students returning from the West, liberalism had tre- mendous appeal for the Chinese intellectual. But it could never satisfy his need for totalism, and its "drop-by-drop" moderation
(in Dewey's phrase) seemed weak in contrast with the messianic tone of its ideological competitors. Liberalism was least able to make sustained use of feelings of hostility and rebellion, and al- though its stress upon individualism inspired Chinese to challenge family authority, it offered little help for the resulting guilt and identity stress. It offered no lasting group identity to a people who had become dependent upon one, and no substitute for the filial loyalties being cast off. In addition, because of its Western origins, it bore the stigma of Western imperialism, no matter how strongly Chinese and Western liberals opposed to imperialism sought to dis- sociate themselves from this stigma. Liberalism also created a problem about "Chineseness" (as, for example, for Robert Chao and Grace Wu), since the individual Westernization which was likely to accompany any profound acceptance of liberal democratic ideas often led to a sense of being severed from Chinese roots.
Without entering further into the question of potential com- patibility between traditional Confucian humanism and modern liberal democratic ideals (and a case can be made for sucli com- patibility), we can say that no effective political-ideological form was evolved to unite them. Liberal democratic ideology during the transitional period therefore proved more effective in stimulating opposition to the past than in resolving pressing emotional con- flicts of the present.
Every Chinese intellectual to whom I spoke emphasized just how pressing these conflicts were. Even taking into account the general tendency during any such transitional period to stress only chaos
(some intellectuals must have lived relatively stable lives), there is no doubt that emotional chaos was widespread. Generations of young students had their patriotic emotions aroused but unsatisfied, their rebellious feelings frustrated, their guilt unresolved, their self- definition obscured. Sons and daughters clashed openly with their parents in a society ill-equipped to deal with such strife. While
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great strides were made in youthful self-assertion and in the posi- tion of women, much remained confused. In father-son conflicts, compromises were often achieved at the price of great anguish for both parties. And the breakdown of clear-cut male and female roles often resulted in uncomfortably overt female domination, a recur- rent theme in our case histories. 30
Once initiated into the antitraditional, modern Western world, the Chinese intellectual could never reverse the psychological forces generated within him. The intense conflicts and visions experienced during youthful struggles to attain adult identity often remained throughout life, and the struggles of the modern student in many ways came to characterize the entire transitional period. Sometimes the former student activist, as he got older, seemed to slip back into a traditional pattern, honor his filial duties, then see his own rebel- lions mirrored in those of his son. But no matter how filial or how "modern" the Chinese intellectual appeared on the surface, some conflict between these two emotional tendencies was bound to be taking place underneath. His undigested combination of filialism, Nationalism, and Western liberalism was likely to leave him-- at different times and in different degrees--rebellious, withdrawn, disillusioned, despairing. Continuous war and plunder further sapped energies and hopes--early revolutionary battles, encounters between warlords, Japanese invasions, World War II, and the Communist- Nationalist Civil War. Governed during the latter phase of the transitional period by a group which had become "conservative and antirevolutionary" and out of touch with his own aspirations, the modern student shared in the "general bankruptcy of morale" 31 and turned his gaze toward Communism--if it was not already there.
Thought Reform: The Filled Communist
In Communism, his third ideological alternative, the Chinese intellectual found a no-nonsense solution for his spiritual predica- ment. What role did thought reform play in this solution? Was the cure worse than the disease?
The interplay between Chinese intellectuals and Communism began, not in 1948, but in 1919, immediately following the Russian Revolution. From then on, Communism became linked with
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China's own continuous revolution--emotionally, organizationally, and ideologically. Of all Chinese mass movements, Communism was most capable of harnessing the powerful emotions released in the youth-age cultural reversal;32 moreover, its revolutionaryinspira- tion and practical techniques were attractive to Nationalist leaders like Sun and Chiang, and its emphasis upon social reform was much admired by Westernized Chinese liberals.
Communism's greatest ideological weapon was perhaps the "grandiose, starkly melodramatic image of the world"33 provided by the Leninist theory of imperialism, the doctrine which placed on the Western nations and their international finance capital vir- tually the entire onus for China's (or any other "backward" coun- try's) wretched condition. Intellectuals of all shades of political opinion found in this theory a focal point for hostilities, a reassuring interpretation of a humiliating situation, a way to avoid the pain of their own struggles with shame and guilt by centering their ac- cusatory emotions upon an outside enemy, and a rationale for re- jecting that Western enemy even while borrowing his knowledge and methods. This kind of emotional relevance leads to great over- simplifications, and Chinese intellectuals magnified the part-truths of the Leninist theory into a "scientific" gospel.
Liberals, Nationalists, and even traditionalists espoused this theory, but it was really Communist property, an integral part of the broader Communist scheme. As the modern student moved from the Leninist theory to its surrounding Marxist-Leninist prin- ciples, which had great currency even outside the Communist move- ment, he found that this hostile critique reinforced his own Chi- neseness, so that even when he severely criticized China's past, he was able to avoid a sense of being completely alienated from it. And the unwavering boldness of Marxist-Leninist and Communist attacks on both Chinese tradition and the modern West saved him from both the confusing complexities of liberalism, and the fluctuating ethics of Kuomintang Nationalism. The three-fold Com- munist program was clear enough: break filial bonds, expell the harmful Westerner, and follow the Communist Party on the path to total redemption. Thus the modern intellectual could begin to see a possible solution for his long-standing emotional torment; not only could hostility be expressed and guilt atoned for, but there seemed to be the promise of an identity which was both new
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and Chinese.
Yet at first, for most intellectuals, all of this was no more than a
possibility, and here is where thought reform enters the picture. In the ndd-i93o's intellectuals recruited to the Communist-held border area--just a handful from among the great numbers who were em- bracing Communism--were already undergoing a kind of re-educa- tion which closely resembled later thought reform programs. From that time on, thought reform took shape as the Communists' con- veyer of a new Chinese identity. It won adherents, trained cadres, ensured compliance to Communist doctrines, and instilled inner warning signals of anxiety to guard against potential deviation. Yet transcending all of these very important functions was (and is) thought reform's role in directing the human aspect of China's vast culture change--or to put it more accurately, in redirecting on its own terms a culture change which was already well under way.
To influence this change, thought reform had to deal with the problem of filial piety, less with its traditional ideology than with its modern emotional remnants. This involved thought reform in four basic identity tasks.
First and most obvious was the problem of coming to grips with filial emotions which have a way of outlasting even the most ex- treme kind of transitional rebellion. Emotions of loyalty, self- discipline, and respect for authority remained alive side-by-side with their negation, and these were emotional commodities too valuable for the Communists to waste, even if it were possible to dispel them. "Hate your past to win your future," the reformers urged, and they meant it. But they might well have added, "Do not hate it so much that you cannot bring us its sense of filial dedication. " The re- formed intellectual was expected to be, as before, loyal, self-dis- ciplined, and obedient--now a filial son of the Communist regime.
Thought reform placed equal stress on its second task, the un- dermining of lingering effects of Western liberalism. Liberalism was a dangerous rival; it still appealed to many intellectuals as an inner alternative to Communist discipline. In personal terms, this task meant that an intellectual had to be taught to stigmatize as evil and selfish those aspects of himself which desired moderation, wished to live and let live, considered both sides of any question, or favored any form of gradualism. Hu Shih was an obvious choice for the symbolic liberal villain. He has been denounced in almost all
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thought reform curricula, and during 1954 and 1955 a special na- tional campaign was conducted during which his personal life and his pplitical, historical, and literary opinions were subjected to a Communist-style dissection. Hu was condemned as an "extreme liberal/' a "pro-American/' and "worshiper of America/' a purveyor of "anti-Marxist pragmatism"; and it was made clear that these pernicious influences still exterted considerable influence upon in- tellectuals. 34 The liberal identity may not have been as deep-rooted as that of the filial son, but its relationship to rival political forces make it, in Communist eyes, a more dangerous one.
The third task was a mopping-up operation directed against transi- tional chaos and against the psychological patterns which accom- panied it. Confusion was to be replaced by certainty, wavering speculation by absolute knowing. Under attack were many rela- tively indefensible identities--those related to cynical detachment, asocial self-seeking, or hollow despair, and those associated with non- ideological personal loyalties to questionable political, military, or financial leaders. In this area the Communists were able to mobilize considerable moral force.
Finally, thought reform has had a synthesizing function, the building of a new identity. Resurrected filial emotions, much of the identity of the modern student, and a sizable chunk of the inter- national Communist were all to be a part of it.
An awareness of these four identity tasks enables us to read be- tween the cliches of thought reform, and construct an analysis based on the principle of imposed identity change. We then discover that its language and its demands, stereotyped as they are, have a special set of emotional meanings for Chinese intellectuals. In both sequence and content, the thought reform process bears down on the historical and cultural conflicts I have enumerated.
The first stage of thought reform (the great togetherness) offers a prelude of promise--the sense of effortlessly merging with a dedicated group which is basic to any Utopian quest. This stage revives the group identity of the modern student, and gives an immediate sense of release from the emotional chaos of the transi- tional period (the third of the four identity tasks). "Thought mobilization" then reminds everyone that inner chaos is not to be so easily cleared up, that the infection is deep-seated. As Mao him- self explains; "The first method is to give the patients a powerful
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stimulus, yell at them, T ou're sick! ', so that the patients will have a fright and break out in an over-all sweat; then, they can be care- fully treated. " 85 The intellectual is reminded that he has inner conflicts (indeed they are made to seem worse than he thought they were); but the accompanying rationale gives him a feeling that Communist "doctors" possess both the knowledge of cause and the means of cure. The treatment will be difficult, but if he will submit himself to it totally and trust in his physicians, he will acquire a new self, and be better than ever. The stress upon promise and need, and the accusations leveled at the distant and recent past indicate the general direction of the treatment. This first stage thus focuses the intellectual's full attention on the identity tasks at hand.
Stage two (the closing in of the milieu) brings on the struggle phase: the pain which the intellectual must experience in order to realize the Utopian promise, the psychological surgery necessary to rid him of the disease. The "logical dishonoring" of this stage of the re-education process can be understood in terms of the specific conflicts of Chinese intellectuals.
For instance, the Chinese intellectual is vulnerable to the ac- cusation of "individualism"--the most basic criticism, since in the eyes of the Communists it "sums up in one term the ideological characteristics of the petty bourgeois class" 36--on all identity fronts. When individualism is defined as "ultra-democratic ideology, tend- ency for independent action, excess emphasis upon individual lib- erty," 37 it is obviously being directed at the Western liberal in him. When it is defined as "individual firstism" to include those who "both adulate and pull strings/' who believe that "what is mine is mine and what is yours is also mine," 38 he can feel its valid applica- tion to highly-personalized acquisitive patterns which became so prominent during the transitional phase. When individualism is described as "placing personal honor, status, and interests above other things," 39 the intellectual feels it directed against traditional patterns still part of himself--especially against the traditional stress on preserving individual dignity and social standing which is in- herent in the Chinese concept of "face. " 40 And the criticism of "individual heroism" applies both to the traditional Chinese ideal of the chien-hsia or "knight errant" and to more modern ideals of "the hero" brought in from the West. Each of these forms of "in- dividualism" is equated with selfishness, hypocrisy, and insincerity;
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each is rendered immoral because it allegedly conflicts with the greater group interest.
The Chinese intellectual has similar vulnerabilities to the accusa- tion of "subjectivism. " When this fault is ascribed to those "who simply quote the words of books they have studied as the sole basis for the solution of problems," it is being directed at a long-standing Confucian pattern which persisted in the approach of Chinese intellectuals to Western knowledge as well as to Confucianism itself. 41 When Communist reformers denounce the "subjective idealism and mysticism" of such liberal approaches as those of John Dewey and Hu Shih,42 they are dealing with a more recent set of hopes and visions so consistently shattered that many Chinese intellectuals are now willing to view them as illusory. "Worshipping blindly Western culture"4S is another accusation which makes effective contact with the modern student identity in all Chinese intellectuals (but since the Communists could themselves be ac- cused of doing the same thing, much depended on which aspects of Western culture were chosen as objects of worship).
Just as the "sincere man" (one who submits totally to the Com- munist movement) is offered as the identity alternative to individ- ualism, so the "scientific" practitioner of Marxist-Leninism is the alternative to subjectivism: "Marxism-Leninism, derived from ob- jective reality and tested by objective reality, is the most correct, scientific, and revolutionary truth.
" 44 This form of scientism (I use the term to mean both a false claim of precision based upon an alleged natural science model, and a deification of science itself) has a very special appeal for those rebelling against a non-West- ern, nonscientific cultural tradition. Scientism was thus a comfort- able ideological resting place for many Chinese intellectuals after the confusing array of ideas to which they had been so recently exposed.
The Communists equated most additional criticisms either with individualism or with subjectivism, but two of their other epithets --"liberalism" and "sentimentalism"--have special importance for the problems under discussion.
I have already mentioned the accusation of "extreme liberalism" applied to Hu Shih; closely related is the charge of "extreme dem- ocratic tendencies. " Both these accusations have direct application to those Western liberal influences which the Communists seek to
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undermine; but there is also a specifically Chinese connotation for "liberalism. " In an essay devoted to this question, "In Opposition to Liberalism," Mao's first illustrative bad example is "failing to start an argument in principle with a person, even when you know he is in the wrong, letting things slide for the sate of peace and cordiality, all because he is an old friend, a fellow villager, a fellow student, a close friend, someone beloved, an old colleague, or an old subordinate . . . or speaking about [the error] in allusions in order to preserve harmony and unity. " Mao is referring here mainly to the principles of personal loyalty, propriety, and harmony carried over from the filial identity of traditional Chinese culture. All these principles are then viewed in terms of individual char- acter, and "liberalism" is extended to include "refusing to consider correction of your errors even when you recognize them, adopting a liberal attitude toward yourself. "45 Liberalism becomes equated with laxity, softness, and self-indulgence. Here, the traditional Chinese considerations for "human feelings"--that special tolerance for individual frailty which gave balance to an otherwise rigid Confucian system--is under fire; and so is the modern liberal ethic which also urges respect for individual differences.
"Sentimentalism" has essentially the same significance as the personal side of "liberalism/' and refers mainly to a reluctance to sacrifice personal loyalties, and especially those of family, to politi- cal (Communist) considerations. This is primarily an attack upon traditional practices, although a modern liberal can also be guiltyof sentimentalism in connection with his concern for other people as individuals. A deep reluctance to sever his personal ties was often more than offset by the Chinese intellectual's rebellion from these ties, as well as by his conviction that sentimentalism and nepotism had long been barriers to Chinese progress. He was, moreover, offered an identity alternative which was just the opposite of liberal and sentimental softness: that of a "straightforward, loyal, and posi- tive" person who would, "no matter where or when, uphold correct principles and struggle untiringly against all incorrect thoughts and actions"46--in other words, he was to become definite rather than wishy-washy, active and "masculine" rather than passive and "femi- nine. "
The methodical criticisms and self-criticisms of thought reform's second stage are thus aimed at breaking down every emotional iden-
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tification which could interfere with the full acceptance of the new Communist identity. Authorities from outside the Communist camp are devalued (as, for instance, the university professors who were publicly humiliated) until they too fall into step with the Communist program. Nothing in one's heritage is to remain worthy of respect unless it contributes to the "new man" being shaped.
The final stage (submission and rebirth) completes the four identity tasks. In this stage the intellectual symbolically acts out his "turning over/' and at the same time commits himself to it by his written analytic statement.
The denunciation of one's father is the symbolic act par excel- lence. Through it the intellectual is to cast off his tie to filialism entirely; after this let no man regard him as a traditional filial son. The act also severs him from his more recent past, and allows him to disown the identities derived from the transitional period. It has this last effect because in China the father has always been especially representative of a man's past, and because the fathers of con- temporary intellectuals were very apt to have been associated with Nationalist, liberal, or other transitional Western influences (as they were for three of my four Chinese subjects). Indeed, the most celebrated denunciations of fathers were cases in which the fathers had distinguished themselves mostly in connection with Western learning: Lu Chih-wei, the former president of Yenching Univer- sity, whose humiliation by his daughter was described by Grace Wu, was an American-trained psychologist; Liang Chi-ch'iao, who was posthumously condemned by his son, himself a university professor, was one of the great early reformers; and a widely-pub- licized attack was made upon Hu Shih (in absentia) by his son. The latter called his father a "public enemy of the people, and an enemy of myself" and went on to state the identity issue in very clear terms: "I feel it is important to draw a line of demarcation between my father and myself. "47 The "line of demarcation" is be- tween father and son, old regime and new, family and Party, past and future.
The final thought reform summary, with its detailed class analy- sis, codifies and conceptualizes the identity shift, and puts it on permanent record. The class analysis is based on Communist psy- chological theory, the crux of which is that "in a class society, man's class character forms the very nature and substance of man . . .
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the class character of man is determined by his class status. "48 The thought reform participant can draw upon this concept for a correlation of class and character: those from "exploiting classes" are extravagant, competitive, cruel, abusive; those of proletarian origin seek solidarity, mutual co-operation, have a "sense of organ- ization and discipline," and are also characterized by "progressive outlook and demand of public ownership of property/' revolt against all exploiters, militancy, tenacity, and so on--in other words, the ideals of the Communist Party as an organic representa- tive of the working classes. Intellectuals, since they have bourgeois and petty bourgeois backgrounds, must inevitably reflect the charac- teristics of these classes: idealism, greed, objectivism, individualism, and stress on personal honor and status. In this sense, all of thought reform is an attempt to emulate Mao Tse-tung's own example and "outgrow" one's class characteristics by changing from one class to another. If an intellectual cannot achieve this ideal of becoming "one with the masses of workers and peasants" 49 he can at least do the next best thing and "accept the direction of the ideology of the working class"--in other words, of Marxism-Leninism and "the thought of Mao Tse-tung. "50 These views on class char- acter, derived from earlier Communist writings, have limitations as psychological theory, but they do serve as a framework for the content of the final thought summary or personal confession. They supply the necessary theoretical basis for commitment.
The third stage ends on a note of togetherness very similar to the one with which the program begins. The pattern of thought reform thus follows the classic Marxist sequence of harmony, struggle, harmony; in psychological terms--group identification, isolation and conflict, and reintegration. At every moment of thought reform, the intellectual has revised, rejected, and modified elements of his past in order to dislodge himself from what he was, and become someone else.
As painful as it is, thought reform would never have a lasting effect if it did not offer a new and appealing sense of identity as its reward. I have so far mentioned only a few of the character traits which thought reform attempts to instill. In general, the reformed identity is based upon principles originally applied to Communist party members, the ? lite of the Communist movement. This identity is therefore not an exact blueprint, but rather an ideal which
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neither the dedicated Communist nor the ordinary intellectual can hope to realize fully. But like the identity ideal of the filial son, it is one against which everything else must be weighed,
Partly for this reason I have called the thought reform identity the "filial Communist"--but not for this reason alone. For in be- coming a- filial Communist, the Chinese intellectual becomes part of a new mystique, also vast in its scope and stringent in its de- mands, one which, like the old Chinese family system, envelops almost his entire life space. The filial Communist draws upon traditional sources for its all-important ethic of loyalty, and taps the values of the transitional period for its stress upon progress, science, and change. It is thus a culmination of the historical Chinese identity shifts we have been discussing.
What is the "new man" of thought reform to be like? Many of his characteristics were described by Liu Shao-chi in the famous pamphlet, "How to be a Good Communist/' Liu's criteria, those from other Communist writings, and the attitudes expressed by my subjects allow us to summarize the personal qualities of the ideal filial Communist as follows: he is active, energetic, decisive, un- ambivalent, forceful, masculine, unwavering in his thoughts and actions; he is logical, scientific, materialistic, and disdainful of mysticism, of notions of spiritual values, and of philosophical ideal- ism; he is realistic, down to earth, simple in his tastes, deeply re- spectful toward labor and toward the masses, critical of artistic and intellectual efforts that are not of practical value; he is selfless and totally dedicated, subordinating his own interests to those of the Party and the People in every conceivable manner, ready to make any sacrifices, including that of his life, and to be, in so doing, the happiest of men; he is humble, self-critical, receptive to criticism from others, eager to improve himself in order to be able to do still more for his cause; he is always enthusiastic, confident, high-
spirited, totally sincere in his manner and in his beliefs, well- integrated within himself and in harmony with his society; he is modern, progressive, forward-looking, disdainful of traditional cul- tures and of requirements dictated by past custom; he is conscious of his relationship to a great international movement, of his role in liberating human beings from their bondage, and of having participated in "the remoulding of the substance of mankind"; yet he is proudly Chinese, intensely patriotic, nationalistic, aware of
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being part of an old and great civilization, of a nation far exceeding any other in population and in potential power.
While no such man could possibly exist, the identity ideal is impressive in its excess of both crassness and nobility. It contains in its totalism the psychological potential for wide-ranging accom- plishment as well as for bitter disillusionment. No more radical change in Chinese character has ever been called for.
Do these identity shifts mean that filial piety, in the original family sense, no longer has any emotional appeal for Chinese in- tellectuals? We can draw no such conclusion. The history of other mass movements teaches us that attacks upon family ties are most characteristic of early phases. We can expect in China, as hap- pened in Russia, a revival of support for the family--that is, for a form of "new Communist family," regarded as an extension of rather than a threat to the regime. It is doubtful whether anything approaching the old ideology of filialism can ever reappear in China, but its central principle of obedience and loyalty of children to their parents is too basic an emotional phenomenon, and one too deeply rooted in Chinese life, to be long negated. Not only does the new Communist man bear the stamp of his filial past; his creators--perhaps more than they realize--are influenced by that same cultural heritage.
? CHAPTER 20
CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES: ORIGINS
Where did the Chinese Communists learn their re-
form skills? How did they get to be such master psychologists?
These are questions I have frequently been asked, and as often as not the questioner has in mind a theory of his own: the Chinese have studied Freud on individual psychology, or Kurt Lewin on group dynamics, or Pavlov on conditioned reflexes. The first two of these theories (Freud and Lewin) are products of a cultural and professional ethnocentrism among Western psychiatrists and social scientists; actually, neither Freud nor Lewin has had much in- fluence in China or Russia. The Pavlovian theory is more generally held. It is based on a chain of associations that goes something like this: Pavlov--Russian scientist--supported by Soviet regime-- Soviets use his theory of conditioned reflex for propaganda pur- poses--they taught his techniques to the Chinese--result, thought reform. But there is no convincing evidence that thought reform de- veloped this way. It is true that academic psychology in Communist China does follow the Soviet lead in emphasizing Pavlovian theory, but academic psychologists apparently have had nothing to do with thought reform. And even in the Soviet Union, according to an American authority, there has been nothing to indicate that psy- chiatrists or psychologists have shaped confession or indoctrination techniques, or even that Pavlovian theory has been an important
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model for propaganda approaches. 1 In all three of these theories there is the twentieth-century tendency to single out the scientific specialist both as the fountain of all knowledge and the perpe- trator of all evil, Moreover, all of them neglect the two great histori- cal forces which shaped thought reform: Chinese culture and Rus- sian Communism.
The Russian Communist contribution to thought reform is immediately apparent in much of the content and many of the forms of the process; the allegedly scientific Marxist-Leninist doc- trine; the stress upon criticism, self-criticism, and confession as features of "ideological struggle"; the organizational techniques of "democratic centralism"; the combination of Utopian imagery and iron discipline; the demands for purity of belief and absolute obe- dience; and the practice of informing upon others in the service of the Party. Certainly, many of the pressures used to extract confes- sions in penal thought reform closely resemble techniques used by the Russians during the great Soviet purge trials of the late 1930'$: the irresistible demand for an admission of criminal guilt, however distorted or false, and the prolonged interrogations, physical pres- sures, and incriminating suggestions used to obtain it. 2 Eastern European Communist nations have employed similar confession methods, for instance, in the widely publicized cases of Cardinal Mindszenty, William Oatis, and Robert Vogeler.
Russian Communist influences are also responsible for thought reform's immense stress upon sin and evil, and for its continual manipulation of feelings of guilt within all who take part in the program. Such a focus upon sin and guilt has never been prominent in traditional Chinese culture. These Soviet Russian contributions are in turn derived from the many cultural influences which fed modern Communism; the Judeo-Christian religious tradition, the Utopian secular ideologies of the eighteenth century, mystical elements of German romanticism, and the authoritarian excesses of traditional Russian and Byzantine culture, including the heritage of the Russian Orthodox church.
But after acknowledging these Russian and Western debts, we must still ask why it was the Chinese who developed thought reform. Other Communist countries have, to be sure, used elaborate propaganda techniques and various psychological pressures, but never with thought reform's meticulous organization, its depth of
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psychological probing, or its national scale. Nowhere else has there been such a mass output of energy directed toward changing people. In Russia confessions have generally been associated with the purge --the "ritual of liquidation"; in China, confession has been the vehicle for individual re-education. What is the source of this special reform emphasis?
Communist leaders reveal the source in some of their thought re- form writings. Liu Shao-chi, for instance, in "How to be a Good Communist" enjoins Party neophytes to pursue diligently their "self-cultivation. " And he quotes as an example the experience and the words of none other than Confucius himself:
At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the decree of Heaven. At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At sev- enty, I could follow my heart's desire, without transgressing what was right.
Liu also makes reference to the Confucian disciple who said: "I reflect on myself three times a day," and to the Book of Odes which suggests that one cultivate oneself "as a lapidary cuts and files, carves and polishes. " He refers to the Confucian principles expressed in the following quotation from The Great Learning:
The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their own states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost, their knowledge. . . . from the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides. 3
These principles echo in the thought reform program, although Liu does of course emphasize the Communists' needs to stress materialism rather than classical "idealism," and to achieve their self-cultivation not through passive meditation but rather by means of active participation in the Communist movement.
Yet the concept of self-cultivation is distinctly Confucian, as is Liu's injunction to Communist cadres that each "watch himself when alone. " Liu and other Communist theorists may refer to these
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traditional principles in order to introduce the alien words of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin in a familiar idiom; but this Confucian idiom does have deep emotional meaning even for anti-Confucian re- formers, and it is this lingering Confucian spirit which has caused the Chinese Communists to make an ideological fetish of moralistic personal re-education.
Similarly, the Confucian principle of "rectification of names" (which according to the Sage was the first and most important task for a new ruler) has important bearing upon thought reform's ap- proach to the reshaping of identity. In both cases, "rectification" means changing not the "name" or category of man, but rather changing the man himself until he fits that category--the Con-
fucian or Communist ideology, of course, being the arbiter of proper standards. This principle is expressed in Confucius' demand, "let the ruler be ruler, the minister be minister; let the father be father and the son, son," and in the Communist demand that the intellectual be the "progressive" or "proletarian" intellectual or the "good Communist. " For Confucianism shares with Communism the assumption that men can and should remake themselves, first as part of a process of changing their environment, and then as a means of adapting themselves to their environment. Both systems always involve a subtle interplay between role and identity: one first learns the more or less formal requirements for thought and be- havior, and only much later becomes in his essence the thing aspired to. This is called achieving complete "sincerity. "
And in Confucianism, just as in thought reform, the ideal of sincerity is made almost sacred:
Sincerity is the way of heaven. The attainment of sincerity is the way of men. He who possesses sincerity is he who, without an effort, hits what is right, and apprehends without the exercise of thought;--he is the sage who naturally embodies the right way. He who attains to sin- cerity is he who chooses what is good and firmly holds it fast. 4
This Confucian (and later neo-Confucian) notion of sincerity depends very much upon the principle of harmony: harmony within, permitting one to act correctly in an automatic fashion, and harmony without, enabling one to find his proper behavior in re- lationship to other men. To be sincere, in traditional China, meant to possess an inner urge toward fulfilling one's obligations, includ-
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ing both the desire and the means for conforming to the filial ideology. Only the sincere man could give full expression to his nature, possess genuine self-knowledge, exert a beneficial influence upon others, and achieve a complete union (both organic and mystical) with Heaven and Earth. Thought reform is a way to achieve such sincerity in relationship to Communist doctrine. As in Confucianism, it is finding the correct path; as in neo-Confucianism it is combining knowledge and action. And the man who is truly sincere, like his Confucian and neo-Confucian counterparts, is said to possess superhuman powers. 5
These traditional Chinese themes could be expressed in thought reform only because they were also consistent with Marxist-Leninist principles. And this double fit has enabled the Chinese Communists to pursue them so energetically. Marxist-Leninist writings, for in- stance, are replete with references to personal reform; a similar Chinese cultural tradition has enabled Chinese Communists to be good Marxists. Communist practice in any country requires role- playing and identity change; but the Chinese bring to this a more concrete and explicit--not to say diligent--emphasis. In the matter of sincerity, Leninists too stress uniting theory and practice; but it is thought reform's combination of Marxist-Leninist (including Christian and Russian) with Confucian influences that has pro- duced the bizarre extremes described in this book: for when the Eastern notion of The Way was combined with the Western ideal of credal purity, sincerity came to mean nothing short of absolute submission.
It is impossible to document all the ways in which traditional Chinese and Russian Communist styles come together in thought reform, but a few of the more important convergences are worth listing. We have already noted the great sweep of both Confucian- ism and Communism; both cover all aspects of human existence in their stress upon loyalty and orthodoxy. In addition, both have a tradition of benevolent leadership by a small elite, within a strongly authoritarian framework. They also share an emphasis upon the responsibility of the individual person to the larger human group, upon his impotence when he stands alone, and upon the dangers of deviant individual initiative. In both there is the conviction that human nature is essentially good, although the extent to which both seek to control human behavior makes one wonder whether
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their advocates really believe this. The Russian Communist re- liance upon emotionally charged slogans has an analogue in the traditional Chinese style of thinking in wholes rather than in parts, of using proverbs and metaphor to envelop a subject emotionally as well as intellectually. 6 There is some similarity (along with a good deal of difference) between the Soviet Communist dualism of the dialectic and the traditional Chinese dualism of Yin and Yang,7 The traditional blood brotherhood of Chinese rebel bands and secret societies resembles Communism's sense of cloak-and- dagger intimacy and moral mission. The Soviet Communist stress upon personal confession (the main source of this ethic for thought reform) had some relationship to the traditional Chinese practice of requiring local officials to accept blame for such things as natural catastrophes and to "confess" that their own unworthiness may have been responsible. And in the prison setting, Russian Com- munist pressures to confess (themselves apparently derived from practices of the Tsarist Okhrdna) come together with a traditional Chinese custom of requiring a prisoner to confess his crime be- fore being judged, while granting the judge considerable latitude in the methods he could employ to extract this confession. 8
How did this blending of cultural styles occur? The extensive thought reform program which the Communists had ready at the moment of the takeover was obviously the product of years of preparation. I was fortunate in being able to discuss this question in some detail with Mr. Chang Kuo-t'ao, one of the leading figures of the early Chinese Communist movement until his defection in 1938. According to Mr. Chang, the Communists began to employ systematic, if crude, reform techniques as early as the late igzo's. Communist leaders commanding small and relatively isolated mili- tary units began to devote much attention to the problem of win- ning over captured enemy soldiers and groups among the general population. Their task was complicated by the differences among their prospective converts: peasants, opium-smoking bandits, dis- gruntled conscripts in the Kuomintang armies, old-time Kuomintang supporters, uninvolved bystanders, and idealistic intellectuals. They first utilized international Communist principles, learned from Soviet contacts, dealing with "agitation and propaganda/' But very soon they began to modify these and develop their own pro- grams derived from their special Chinese environment.
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They approached uneducated peasants on a simple colloquial level. Ordinary enemy soldiers were first treated with unexpected "leniency"; then they were encouraged to vent all of their grievances against such past authorities as landlords and officers (to "vomit bitter water"); next they were taught to recognize the social evils of the Kuomintang regime as the source of their suffering ("dig the bitter roots"). The soldier was then offered an opportunity to remain with the Communists--to join the "one heart movement" to combat Chiang Kai-shek and create a new China; or he was given the option of returning to his home village as a person osten- sibly sympathetic to the Communist cause. As in later programs, participants quickly became themselves active reformers: peasant soldier captives showing signs of "progress" were encouraged to circulate among new arrivals with similar class backgrounds, and help in the latter's "vomiting" and "root digging" by recounting their own happy reform experiences.
With captured officers the Communists employed more sophisti- cated and individualized approaches. After separating the officer from his men, they would assign to him some of their most articu- late and persuasive spokesmen, and then subject him to prolonged analytic discussions of his personal relationship to the Chinese Civil War. Struggle procedures were used upon the most recal- citrant, and those known to be responsible for the death of large numbers of Communists were often executed; but there was an attempt to win converts whenever possible.
Chang emphasized that, with both officers and men, the Com- munists were consciously aware of the importance of setting an impressive personal example in their own dedication, discipline, and personal morality. After their first more or less experimental military efforts, the Communists proceeded in twenty years of trial-and-error improvement to make their program increasingly efficient. They extended the reform efforts to Japanese prisoners cap tured during the thirties and later to American prisoners captured during the Korean war. But their main efforts were concentrated upon their own countrymen during the phases of the long Chinese Civil War, so that by the time of the takeover, they had learned how to apply them quickly and effectively to entire armies of prisoners.
The reform program specifically for intellectuals, as opposed to
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that for military captives, was developed by Communist groups operating in the outlying border areas during the Yenan period (1935-45). In order to absorb the large numbers of intellectuals, sympathetic but inexperienced (at least in the ways of revolution), who made their way to these Communist areas, a number of special training centers were set up. Those in the Yenan area of northwest China--the Anti-Japanese University, North Shensi Academy, and Marx Lenin Institute (later renamed Lu Hsun Academy)--gave rise to the thought reform programs for intellectuals we have been studying.
Here, as elsewhere, the Communists started with a prescribed Russian Communist model: the Yenan institutions were set up as replicas of Sun Yat-sen University in Moscow, an early training center for Chinese Communist intellectuals. This model was then adapted to their own revolutionary style. The Communists im- provised as they went along, hardly following a precise scientific "methodology. " Indeed, Mr. Chang felt that an important factor in the introspective hsiieh hsi, or group study process, was the isolation of many of these early institutions, and the lack of qualified teachers and textbooks, so that much of the subject matter studied had to come from the participants. This comment, while far from a full explanation, does make clear how important the external circum- stances were under which the Chinese Communist revolutionary movement synthesized Chinese and Russian Communist themes. Nor were Chinese improvisations always approved by Russian ad- visors: Chang mentioned that on several occasions Chinese Com- munist leaders were criticized for being "too much influenced by Confucian ethics. " Yet this moral and psychological emphasis seemed to come naturally to them; according to Chang, they were "good psychiatrists. " And although the Nationalists made similar efforts to "reform" Communists and Communist sympathizers in special "repentance camps," their efforts were (according to Chang and many other observers) much more clumsy and much less effective.
Perhaps the crucial step in the development of the Communist reform program for intellectuals was the Cheng Feng (literally, reform of work style or "spirit") conducted within the Communist Party, mostly in Yenan, from 1942 to 1944. (Mr. Chang was no longer with the Communists then; my information here is based on
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written studies and on the impressions of my subjects. ) During this campaign, the basic techniques, as well as the widely-circulated Reform Documents from which I have been quoting, were evolved.
At' the time of the Cheng Feng, the Party faced the problem of the threat of unorthodoxy among its heterogeneous recruits, and especially among its intellectuals; it was also confronted with the task of Sinifying a Marxist movement whose ideology had here- tofore been entirely foreign, and it had to invigorate intraparty morale. 9 It is of the greatest significance that the Chinese Com- munists solved these problems through personal confession and re-education, that these forms of introspection were used to pro- duce within each Party member the desired blend of Leninism and Chineseness, along with a sense of personal revitalization. From this movement the Chinese Communists' own ideology (mostly in the form of "the thought of Mao Tse-tung") emerged; the im- portance of this ideology lay not in any brilliant originality, but more in its organizational and psychological usefulness, and in the renewed sense of group identity to which both the campaign and its ideology contributed. After the Cheng Feng, the die was cast; just a year later, "the documents of the movement had become Party dogma, and the reform process had become a continuing organizational mechanism. "10 Even such a brief outline of the his- tory of thought reform confirms what I have already suggested-- that the reformers evolved their psychological skills by combining elements from their cultural heritage and their own revolutionary needs with principles of Russian Communist theory and practice.
One other important factor in the Chinese heritage also played a part in the evolution of reform techniques: human-centered psy- chological skills. No other civilization has paid so much attention to the conduct of human relationships. An American anthropolo- gist has claimed that "Chinese culture has developed inter-personal relationships to the level of an exquisite and superb art/'n It is not that Chinese are incapable of obtuseness and insensitivity; but a particular kind of psychological mindedness has long been culti- vated in Chinese life. The Chinese family, with its characteristi- cally complicated inner maneuvering, has been an excellent psy-
chological training ground: in order to be "proper," Chinese children have had to learn to be aware of the emotional currents in their milieu. And this personal emphasis has extended from the family
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into the rest of Chinese life: whether performing official duties or seeking personal objectives, Chinese have always put great stress on exerting influence upon the people involved--and there is only a fine line between influence and manipulation. These human-centered skills have been carefully nurtured over centuries, and emphasized at the expense of technical achievements (even the gods play psy- chological games). 12 In this sense, thought reform is the modern totalitarian expression of a national genius.
But the spirit in which these human-centered skills are used in thought reform is certainly alien to the traditional Chinese cultural style.