What's the difference between old China and new China?

First, the real liberation of the people.

"The people of China have been truly liberated" is one of the most popular slogans in China today. On the surface, all slogans are more or less propaganda. But from a historical point of view, this slogan is an undeniable, unprecedented and brand-new basic fact. From the earliest documented Shang Dynasty, the king was hereditary, the country was the expansion of the royal family, and the land of the country was the king's inheritance. Most members of Shang tribal countries, namely "Zhong" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and "Pan Geng" in Shangshu, were directly or indirectly subordinate to Shang King, engaged in production and undertook labor and military service. With the expansion of the territory of the Zhou Dynasty, feudalism had to be implemented. The land and people belong to Zhou Tianzi and other countries. Because the kings of all countries were sealed by the Zhou Emperor, in theory, "Under the sky, it is the land of kings, the shore of the land, and the minister of kings?" After hundreds of years of great changes in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the unified empire of Qin and Han Dynasties was formed, and the monarchy continued until the Revolution of 1911, lasting for more than 2 100 years. During this long imperial period, the land ownership and tax system, the political, legal, economic and social status of the people, and the differences in nature and degree between dynasties need not be elaborated in this article. However, it is worth noting that when the emperor system was established in the Western Han Dynasty, the people called the emperor "the country". Liu Bang, who became the emperor with the county magistrate, and Zhu Yuanzhang, who became the emperor with the poor peasants, not only offered sacrifices to dishes, but also displayed a number of tribute books. In order to prolong the imperial life and maintain social stability, a few monarchs in the past dynasties sometimes had to take some so-called palliative measures of "benefiting the people". But there is no doubt that for two thousand years, the people have always been the object of land tax, labor and military service, the ruled, the exploited and the spurred, and they are by no means the masters of the country. Wen Yanbo said to Song Shenzong, "Your Highness rules the world with literati, not with the people." The basic historical facts of two thousand years were revealed in one sentence.

Even the leaders of the "Uprising" in past dynasties, from Chen She and Guangwu in Qin and Han Dynasties to Hong Xiuquan in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the late Qing Dynasty, have outdated basic political and social concepts. Among them, the more radical ones, although there were some primitive calls for equal production in the early days of the uprising, were already qualitative when they either failed or were about to succeed. After the successful uprising and the establishment of a new dynasty, the people are still the object of exploitation by the ruling class. Although the junior members of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were full of "revolutionary" ideas, Hong Xiuquan and other kings lived corruptly, and the "heaven-earth system" was generally not implemented. After the Revolution of 1911 and the founding of the Republic of China, until 1949, the people's situation was even more miserable than that of some previous generations because of constant internal and external troubles, poverty and excessive expropriation under the warlord regime, and the unprecedented selfishness of the National Government during its 22 years in power. After the Kuomintang came to power, it betrayed Mr. Zhongshan's livelihood, used the chaebol in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces and local tyrants and evil gentry in various provinces to rule the world, and established various modern economic and financial institutions to suck the fat of the people. It is precisely because these institutions are modern that the efficiency of absorbing human fat far exceeds that of any previous dynasty. These basic historical facts have been unanimously recognized by people without political party background at home and abroad, so there is no need to repeat them.

My personal experience can best reflect the real situation of the people before liberation. 1942 At the beginning of the year, I went to my father's funeral and rushed back to my ancestral home in Jinhua, Zhejiang from Kunming. Then I tried to help my mother and sister in Tianjin and was trapped in the occupied area for one year. In mid-March of the following year, it was only from Shanghai to Shangqiu via Xuzhou, and then from Bo County, Anhui Province to "no man's land" that it re-entered the free zone. It's raining in Luohe Town, Henan Province, so it's temporarily impossible to enter. One day after lunch, I saw the police beating people in the street, and they were badly beaten. I stopped him and told the police that if this person broke the law, he could take him to the court or the county government for trial, and should not fight. The policeman shouted at me without hesitation, "If these people don't hit me, who else will they hit?" I replied that I am also a common people. He looked at me from top to bottom and saw me wearing a Scottish Harris tweed coat and exposed khaki pants. He glared and replied, "Are you wearing a suit or a civilian?" ? "At that time, although it was not the first time to realize the misery of ordinary people, it was the first time to fully realize that my new' scholar-bureaucrat' still belonged to the outermost part of the ruling class.

In 2000, every dynasty "ruled the world with scholar-officials", but at the end of the Kuomintang regime, most of the new "scholar-officials" were impoverished and in jeopardy by inflation. In the final analysis, a regime that was absolutely selfish and desperately exploited the people collapsed and was abandoned by the people, which virtually accelerated the victory of the people's liberation war. I, who was aware of the past, had been specializing in British history and Western European history at Columbia University in new york, and I began to discover the "big ego" gradually during the Golden Dollar Voucher, Changchun and Huaihai campaigns.

The people's liberation struggle in China began in the second half of the 1920s. The basic difference between this struggle and previous uprisings lies in leadership and goals. The ideas and goals of the leaders of previous uprisings are very old, and they all hope to establish a new dynasty. The supreme leader of this liberation struggle is not poor middle peasants and workers, but a senior intellectual with lofty aspirations, foresight, strong perseverance, selflessness, ideals and acceptance of modern capitalism. They fully realize that the oppressed people are the greatest revolutionary potential, and to give full play to this great revolutionary potential, we must rely on organization, ideological education and positive action. Their goal is to completely transform the old society and build a new society with the largest number of poor people as the main body. Although the revolution was initially modeled after the Soviet Union, its main strategies and steps were quite different from the former. At the end of the Russian empire, the * * * production party did not have revolutionary strength and revolutionary foundation at first. Lenin, the supreme leader, was secretly sent back to Russia by Germany in a special car until 19 17. The successful step of the October Revolution was * * * party member, which was exhausted by the failure of the Russian-European war, infiltrated into St. Petersburg and Moscow, absorbed a number of military units of the Tsar stationed in Beijing, forced the central government and the interim government of the Tsar to collapse, and then gradually expanded the revolution to the whole country. The "mainstream" of the proletarian revolution in China has understood the disadvantages of metropolis since 1927, that is, it pays attention to organizing peasant troops and establishing rural revolutionary base areas. Although the theoretical driving force of China's * * * production revolution was imported from the outside, the top leaders of the revolution, from 1927 to the present 46 years, have constantly verified each other with theory and practice, and made decisions according to the local conditions at home and abroad, gradually turning an imported doctrine into a revolutionary program for building the country suitable for the national conditions. Under this new revolutionary program, especially after the Cultural Revolution, the people of China became the real masters of the country for the first time.

Except for a few counter-revolutionaries, the people of China today enjoy the same rights stipulated in the Constitution, and there is no gender or ethnic discrimination. The scope of civil rights stipulated in the Constitution is almost the same as that of western democratic countries. Political aspects include the right to vote and stand for election, freedom of speech, publication, assembly, association, procession, demonstration and religious belief; Personal freedom is inviolable, residence is inviolable, communication secrets are protected by law, there is freedom of residence and migration, and there is the right to sue state functionaries who violate the law and neglect their duties. In addition, civil rights include the right to work, the right to education, the right to medical care and the right to welfare.

However, in practice, there is a prerequisite for enjoying the above extremely extensive civil rights-the words and deeds and consciousness of "individuals" must not go against the interests and will of the people, who are the vast majority of poor peasants and workers. That is to say, the government deprived a few people who were counter-revolutionary and opposed to the dictatorship of the proletariat of their political rights. Further analysis, it is precisely because of the existence of the premise that "individuals" must obey "people" that the freedom of individual citizens' speech, publication, assembly and association stipulated in the Constitution has limitations; In order to adjust the population and materials in various regions and for economic construction, the freedom of personal life, job selection and migration is often inevitably restricted.

Therefore, western liberals and China people who admire liberalism overseas can't help but criticize that the new China is not a real democracy, and emphasize the basic difference between the modern west and China today-the position and value of individuals in the collective society. Discuss freedom first, and then review whether the new China is democratic.

In modern western political and constitutional theory, the most basic unit is the individual, and the state and social collectives cannot infringe on the individual's civil rights, dignity, political beliefs and speeches, as well as any behavior within the scope of law. In the political and constitutional theory of new China, although the individual is also the most basic unit of the country and society, it cannot exist without social class. Individuals belonging to the minority must obey the will of the majority of poor peasants, lower-middle peasants and the working class. Especially since the Cultural Revolution, the trend of combining individuals with people has become increasingly obvious.

From a purely theoretical point of view, there are indeed fundamental differences between China and the West today, but from a practical point of view, the nature and extent of the differences between the two are far from what is generally imagined. Before comparing the advantages and disadvantages of Chinese and western political concepts and systems, we must understand the historical background and limitations of western extreme individual freedom concepts. The concept of extreme individual freedom in the west germinated before the American and French revolutions and played a great role after these two revolutions. /kloc-The American Revolution and the French Revolution in the 0/8th century were deeply influenced by utilitarianism. /kloc-utilitarianism in the 0/8th century believed in "natural order" and believed that everyone was selfish, but the overall interests and order of society would naturally be coordinated. Therefore, utilitarianism advocates that the state and government should not interfere with individual freedom and the natural development of all economic forces, but should adopt laissez-faire and policies.

Needless to say, this is a naive and optimistic view that cannot stand the test of history. Even Adam Smith, the originator of western capitalist classical economics, pointed out in part in the original Fortune published in 1776 that there are often contradictions and conflicts of interests between individuals and associations. Jeremy Bentham (1748- 1832), the "spiritual grandfather" of the British Labor Party, is a master of utilitarianism. He further emphasized that the interests of all classes often conflict, and the institution that regulates these conflicts should be the parliament. Parliamentary legislation should be based on his basic principle-"the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people". Some countries in Western Europe, Northern Europe and the Commonwealth have also taken this historical route, so they gradually use "social welfare legislation" to make up for all kinds of injustice and inequality in capitalist society.

In fact, the social legislation of these western democratic countries and New China basically has a lot in common, and they are all based on the principle of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people". In other words, in terms of theoretical origin, early Marx was also deeply influenced by Bentham. Only in this way, whether in the west or in China, with the increasing complexity of economic production and social organization, the "power boundary" of society (that is, the "group" translated by Yan Fu) is expanding day by day, and the "power boundary" of individuals (the "self" translated by Yan Fu) is shrinking day by day. Even in the democratic west, the personal net surplus "power boundary" is quite different from the personal "power boundary" in the constitution and political theory in life practice.

Today, there are still some gaps between the West and China in terms of individual "power". This gap exists because of the differences between historical traditions and historical development procedures. Britain and some northwest European countries have a tradition of representative system, and social welfare legislation is the result of long-term struggle in parliament by political parties representing the majority of voters. Its historical development is gradual, not revolutionary. Therefore, in theory, these countries generally allow personal freedom of belief and speech and the existence of fierce political parties (but not in actual political actions). In the Russian Empire and China before liberation, the people were oppressed and exploited by the ruling class, and their lives and property were not fully protected by law, and there was no tradition of representative system. There is no way to gradually improve people's welfare through legislation. The only way to liberate people is revolution. The original purpose of the revolution was to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. After the success of the revolution, of course, the residual counter-revolutionary forces cannot be allowed to restore. Therefore, in new China, the "power boundary" of "individual" is limited to some extent in theory and practice.

To objectively evaluate the actual situation of the people in new China and review whether the new China is democratic or not, we must not ignore the factor as important as freedom, even more important than freedom-equality. According to my superficial understanding of western history, I divide democracy into "primary" and "advanced" stages. In "primary" democracy, generally speaking, only individual freedom is guaranteed by the Constitution, which is more advanced than "advanced" democracy. Only then can we consider how to gradually reduce all kinds of inequalities caused by the disparity between the rich and the poor at all levels of society. Obviously, even in so-called "advanced" democratic countries such as Britain and the United States, although some social welfare legislation has been carried out, serious social inequality still exists. Recently, the United States published two new books, which are quite enlightening in the theory of equality. One is inequality: my colleague Lloyd Ferrer, a professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago, acknowledges social rationing. Based on years of investigation and study of some primitive and modern societies in Africa, and compared with today's American society, he came to a comprehensive conclusion that the so-called "social stratification" in western sociology is just a set of terms to cover up the truth between social classes. This breaks the hypocrisy of western capitalist sociology, which is very useful for us to explore the true meaning of social justice and democracy. The other is the new book A Theory of Justice by john rawls, a professor of political science at Harvard University, which discusses the theory of social justice. Although he was limited by the extreme emphasis on individual freedom in American tradition and frankly admitted that the inequality between social classes could not be completely eliminated, he advocated that national laws and measures should be based on the principle of promoting the welfare of the poorest class in society. His ideas are still within the scope of bentham's theory. The difference is that when Bentham was born, most people in any country were poor farmers and workers. In the United States, where capitalism was the most developed in the 1970s, most people already belonged to the "middle class", while the poorest people became a minority. His revision of Bentham's basic principles is worthy of our adoption as the same denominator to further explore the real relationship between social justice and democracy.

Needless to say, all Chinese and foreign people who have visited New China without political prejudice have to admit that since the Cultural Revolution, all laws and measures in China have been based on the welfare of the poor, middle peasants and workers, and all of them coincide with Rawls' legislative standards. Compared with other countries and societies, the lifestyle of the people in New China is closer to real equality. It is true that there are still several levels of salary in China, and it is impossible for a modern and complex society to have a fine social division of labor. However, although the salary scale still exists, the absolute difference between wages and incomes at all levels is actually far less than that in capitalist societies, Soviet Union and other eastern European socialist societies. Moreover, the wage gap in New China will gradually narrow in the future. More importantly, leading cadres (formerly known as "rulers") have a very close relationship with their working members (ruled). They encourage each other at ordinary times and criticize each other when necessary. Moreover, cadres generally lead by example to participate in labor production, and their lifestyles are the same as those of working people. Needless to say, in capitalist societies such as the United States, Western Europe and postwar Japan, the lifestyles of the rich and the poor are very different. Even in the Soviet Union, there are still great gaps and lifestyle differences between working people and "bureaucratic" cadres at all levels who formulate and implement production plans. In the mid-1960s, some scientists in the United States would tell true jokes: when chatting at various international scientific conferences, Soviet scientists often mentioned that their wages were more than 20 times that of urban workers, and even proudly revealed that they had villas in the Black Sea Crimean Peninsula. Undeniably, in the new China society, the factor of equality is higher than any other society in the world.

In exploring the true meaning of democracy, I personally feel that we must apply a third scale that has never been mentioned before-to weigh and compare the degree of "being the masters of the country" between China and the western people in their daily lives. No matter in any country, the relationship between the people and the government's highest decision-making is very indirect, so whether the people are masters of the country must be explored from the most basic units. In capitalist societies such as the West and Japan, although various small-scale independent operators still exist, most of them are employees of large and small enterprises and various organs. Employees are certainly not masters. Theoretically speaking, only in a socialist country where all means of production belong to the people can the people be masters of their own affairs. In the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the production plan is formulated and implemented from top to bottom, and the general public is passive at the grassroots level. Only in the new China, the people at the grass-roots level have fully demonstrated their status as masters. As far as farmers who account for 80% of the national population are concerned, the most basic unit is the production team. In the production team, each member participates in drafting the team's budget and production plan, calculates the working points, distributes income, and determines the reasonable distribution and resumption of the provident fund. The relationship between the person in charge and the members is equal, direct and cordial. Through the person in charge, the production team can participate in the production distribution discussion of the production brigade and the larger commune. /kloc-In the first half of the 9th century, some utopian socialists in western Europe made similar experiments in a small scale, but they all failed, because the whole society remained unchanged. 600 million farmers in new China are masters of their own affairs, which is indeed a brand-new page in human history.

End of this section: We must emphasize that there has never been a democratic system with 100% pure and beautiful chemical formula in human history, and it may never appear. After measuring the theory and practice of China and the West in terms of individual freedom and social equality, we have to admit that advanced western countries respect individual freedom more than new China, but they can't reach the level of social equality in new China. The differences between Chinese and western social systems are due to the differences in historical traditions and historical development procedures. Regardless of the historical background, it is inevitably unfair to praise this one-sidedly and suppress that "utopia" that has not yet appeared in human beings. If the degree of being the master of the grass-roots people is taken as the third measure, the balance will obviously fall to the side of the new China. "The people are the masters of the country" seems to be propaganda at first glance, but poverty is a fact. Only by grasping this basic fact can we understand other major features and achievements of the new China.

Second, organizational ability and ideological education.

The key to the rise and fall of dynasties lies in the broad sense of state organization. In the long history of traditional China, the Warring States, the Qin Dynasty and the Western Han Dynasty have the strongest national organization ability. After the Western Han Dynasty, many obstacles often appeared in the top-down state organization, which weakened the ability of the state organization. In the first half of the 20th century, when domestic troubles and foreign invasion were unprecedented, as Mr. Zhongshan said, the Chinese nation in Nuoda was like a "fragmented sand". However, the new China can transform a fragmented nation into a country with unprecedented organizational capacity in a short time. In order to deepen our understanding of the organizational capacity revolution in new China, we will simply compare the past with the present. During the Warring States period, the Chinese nation began to show a high degree of organizational ability for two main reasons. 1. During the Warring States period, the survival competition among the seven great powers was fierce, forcing all countries to strive for prosperity. Qiang Bing's way to get rich is not mastered by Confucianism, but by several schools of Legalism. The ultimate goal of legalists was to establish absolute monarchy, which was absolute state power at that time. Legalists do not deny the existence of social dignity, but advocate that everyone is equal under the monarch and before the law; Eliminate the aristocratic privileged class in the Spring and Autumn Period, establish a bureaucratic system based on individual talents, implement the county system, and gradually move towards a centralized country. Second, in order to survive and compete for prosperity, Legalists knew the importance of farmers, so they liberated farmers as yeomen, increased agricultural production and expanded the army, and gradually became a militaristic country based on agriculture and war. Legalists serve the autocratic monarchy, not the peasants. Only by strengthening the monarchy can they liberate the peasants. Although the newly liberated yeomen are exploited in charge of forced labor, their status and rights are far superior to those of serfs, and they still have the opportunity to rise to the ruling class from their own efforts and achievements. Therefore, farmers have played some positive roles.

The reform of Qin Xing and Shang Yang was more thorough than the other six countries in 150 years, and finally conquered the six countries, laying the foundation for a unified empire. After Liu Bang captured Xianyang, Xiao He "received the Prime Minister of Qin and collected the imperial edict", which shows that the Western Han Dynasty inherited the Qin system. In the early years of Hanwu, although Confucianism was admired and hundreds of schools were ousted, a generation of political genius Han (73-49 BC) revealed the essence of the political system in the Western Han Dynasty:

"(When Yuan Di was a prince) ... he was kind-hearted and good at Confucianism. Seeing the history of many grammars used by Emperor Xuan Di in the name of punishment, he tasted the swallow and said calmly,' Your Majesty's Buddhism is too deep, so it is better to use Confucian scholars.' Xuan Di said: "The Han family has its own system, which is a mixture of hegemony and kingliness. Why should we teach by virtue alone? " Besides, vulgar Confucianism is out of date and people are dazzled by historical facts. How to appoint them? ! But he sighed and said, "The prince is also a troublemaker in my family. "

Emperor Xuan Di's words were very profound and frank. First, he emphasized that the political system of the Western Han Dynasty was still based on the legalist system since the Warring States and Qin Dynasties. Under the principle of legalists seeking evidence by name, all huge and complicated state institutions-from prime ministers, imperial envoys, central officials, county decrees, and even townships, pavilions, Li, Wu and settlements below the county level-can still be reasonably promoted. In the Western Han Dynasty, this was also a reason for the high administrative efficiency. Second, Xuan Di, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, was indeed a keen and effective prophet. The beginning of the decline of the Western Han Dynasty was the result of the blind worship of Confucianism by emperors such as Yuan (48-33 BC) and Cheng (32-7 BC).

After the founding of the Yuan Dynasty, Cheng Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty, Confucianism became a long-term orthodox political art. The emphasis of Confucianism on "ceremony" is really a theoretical tool to maintain the unequal class society, which is just the opposite of the principle of equality before Legalism. Liu Xiu, the founding monarch of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was himself the big landlord of Nanyang. When he established an imperial dynasty, he relied on the support of tycoons from many other regions. Confucianism just meets the needs of the Eastern Han Dynasty and becomes an ideal theoretical tool to safeguard the private interests of aristocratic families. Filial piety is the most important in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Although there were many filial sons in two hundred years, filial piety also became a cover for the selfish behavior of aristocratic families and literati. For local tyrants to go to the countryside to make money and resist state taxes, they can't be described as "loyalty", but they are often regarded as "filial piety" in a broad sense under the "talk freely" manipulated by literati at that time. In addition, the 13-thorn history record temporarily supervised by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty gradually became a super "province" in the Eastern Han Dynasty. State shepherds often come from aristocratic families. Therefore, since the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, due to the double resistance of local political power and social heroes, the organizational capacity of the country has finally evolved into a situation of three kingdoms. In the later dynasties, these two kinds of resistance continued to exist to varying degrees, or the form of resistance changed, but there is no doubt that the national organizational ability was weakened by various kinds of resistance.

In the final analysis, the most basic factor that affects a country's organizational capacity is whether the people are motivated. In China, a country with a vast territory and a population of 60 million in AD 2, without the active actions of the people, it is impossible to give full play to the organizational capacity of complex state institutions from the emperor to the common people. In the Qin Dynasty, a six-country country where legalism was the political technique, monarchs of various countries had to liberate serfs and protect the interests of yeomen in order to survive in the competition, so farmers were more or less active. After the reunification of Qin Shihuang, the oppression of the competition for survival among ethnic groups ceased to exist. He was overjoyed and no longer sympathized with the people's strength, which led to his demise. Although the Western Han Dynasty inherited the Qin system and suppressed the powerful from time to time, it could never stop the annexation of land and the displacement of poor peasants. From the Eastern Han Dynasty to liberation, although there was a period of political and social stability, the people were always in a passive position. The passive resistance of the people is tax evasion, and the active resistance is to participate in the peasant uprising. Due to various political and social resistance and long-term people's passive or active resistance, North China was trapped in Wuhu and Liaojin for two thousand years, and China conquered the Yuan and Qing Dynasties twice and staged several local separatist regimes. Even in the situation of great unification, the passivity of the people has seriously affected the organizational ability of the country.

In the first half of the 20th century, China inherited all kinds of unprecedented social and economic difficulties brought about by the population explosion since the early Qing Dynasty, and all kinds of political and military disadvantages introduced by the autocratic soldiers of the governor since the late Qing Dynasty faced an unprecedented crisis of national survival-the exploitation of whales by western and Japanese imperialism. Although there were many ideas to save the country at that time, in retrospect, only the China * * * Production Party deeply realized the ineffectiveness of the reform from the upper class and the disadvantages of several metropolises under the control of imperialism. The real way to save the country and survive is to liberate people in backward rural areas, establish revolutionary base areas, and give full play to the active organizational strength of grassroots people. It is precisely because the leaders of the * * production revolution firmly believe that saving the country must first save the people, and leaders share weal and woe with the people from the beginning, so after liberation, especially after the Cultural Revolution, all government measures are based on the wishes and welfare of the poorest people, and the government's goal is to establish an unprecedented equal society. At the grassroots level of this new society, the people are indeed masters and have played an active role. New China is undoubtedly one of the most organized countries in the world. From the central government, through provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions and counties, to the streets of cities, streets and rural production teams, all of them are included in the organizational network. As far as pure theory is concerned, there are two points worth analyzing. One, only the organization, not necessarily can give full play to the power of the organization, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign examples are numerous. Second, whether there is resistance to weaken the organization in the tight organizational network of New China. In fact, since the Cultural Revolution, the above two problems have ceased to exist in practice. The basic reason is that today's China does not rely solely on formal organizations, but pays special attention to politics, and constantly carries out ideological education and discussion on line issues among all social classes. The result of ideological and line education not only makes the possible resistance in the organization impossible, but also stimulates the work enthusiasm of the members of the organization. This is one of the most important features of China after the Cultural Revolution.

It is true that authorities at all times and all over the world understand the importance of broad ideological education. Both traditional China and traditional Europe have implemented the policy of obscurantism, and both of them have been controlled by different degrees of thought for many times. Even in the modern west, which respects individual freedom most, everyone has been brainwashed by the government, church, school, community, family and so on since childhood. Further analysis shows that the values and codes of conduct used by the state and social units to brainwash ordinary people almost all come from the broad ruling class. Brainwashing is by no means a patent of New China. However, the new China dares to honestly call ideological education brainwashing, and the methods of ideological education are extremely well prepared and have a unique effect. Traditional China and the West, ancient and modern Chinese and foreign ideological education, as Confucius said: "People can make it, but not know it." Only the new China's ideological education is: "People must not let go, but must predict it." In other words, the purpose of ideological education in the new China is to let every member discover his "self" through repeated discussions and analysis, wash away his selfish thoughts that may have existed in the past, and then thoroughly review whether the theory and practice of relevant measures really conform to the will and interests of the country and the overwhelming majority of the people. Therefore, this unprecedented ideological education can improve people's political consciousness and give play to people's positive organizational ability.

Historians should point out here by the way that there is another important difference between the new China and the previous generation. One of the drawbacks of the political system of past dynasties was that emperors lived in the deep palace and officials were protected at different levels. Usually, the orders of superiors can't be carried out seriously, and the sufferings of the people are not heard. New China has a strict national communication organization. Newspapers, periodicals and radio stations often explain the policies and intentions of the top leaders to the people, and report on local construction, political situation and people's privacy. Thousands of posters are special media for people to express their opinions actively. These aspects have promoted the use of orders and people's feelings, and strengthened the will and belief of 800 million people to work together to build the country.

From ancient times to the present, the reason why New China attaches the most importance to ideological education seems to be related to China's long-standing rational and humanistic traditions. As early as prehistoric times and Shang Dynasty, the focus of religion was not orthodox gods, but "people" in a broad sense. After liberation, prehistoric pottery, stone harmony, the origin of the word harmony and ancestor worship in Shang Dynasty are all evidences. At the latest in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, rationality and humanism had sprouted. Although the politicians in the early Zhou Dynasty talked about "destiny" on the surface, in fact they not only doubted the authority of "heaven", but also emphasized that the rise and fall of a country basically depended on the will and efforts of the people. There are many documents and inscriptions in the early Zhou Dynasty, so I don't want to repeat them. Even ancestor worship, rationalized by Confucius and Xunzi, has generally become a ritual to meet human psychological and social needs, which is divorced from the nature of orthodox religion. This rational and humanistic tradition, through the struggle with Buddhism in the Southern and Northern Dynasties and Sui and Tang Dynasties, not only won the final victory, but also indirectly made all kinds of reforms and revolutionary movements in modern China not need to struggle with "God". In human history, religion has always opposed any enlightened reform and social revolution with "God" as the authority. Even the socialist revolutions in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe inevitably met with stubborn religious resistance. Although Confucian political and social philosophy was used by emperors in past dynasties, it still had a universal influence on the development and spread of humanism and attached great importance to social environment and educational strength. New China takes its essence and discards its dross, which not only transforms the traditional education of manufacturing scholar-officials into education serving the people, but also transforms the ideological education method from decades of valuable practical experience to perfection. Therefore, the organizational ability of the people and the country has been fully stimulated. The core of ideological education in New China-transforming human society with human will and efforts-cannot be said to have no far-reaching historical origin, nor can it be regarded as one of the most brilliant achievements of "making the past serve the present".

Third, the reappearance of the national "martial virtue"

Most of human history is a history of struggle for survival. A nation lacking martial spirit can't live independently for a long time without being conquered and controlled by other nations. The military plays a key role in the history of the country. During the Spring and Autumn Period, the troops were generally arranged by nobles of various countries, and the scale of the war was relatively large. The lower ranks of the army also included the so-called "China people" at that time, that is, the freemen at the top of the people. The army in the Spring and Autumn Period was mainly composed of nobles, so the atmosphere at that time was proud of being a soldier, and soldiers generally followed the code of conduct of samurai. As far as I know, Chu Zhuangwang explained "Wu" or "Wu De" in the Spring and Autumn Period in the most detailed way. When he was defeated by fear in 597 BC and restored the hegemony of the Jin State, he proposed that the word "Wu" meant "stop the war" and explained the extensive functions of "Wu": "Wu, prohibit violence, protect the country, make meritorious deeds, comfort the people, be harmonious with the people and be rich." Historical facts have proved that Chu Zhuangwang eulogized a highly idealized "martial virtue", which was never fully realized in traditional China.

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