Word: confucianism
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...many ways he is. And that late "bourgeois careerist, renegade and traitor" Lin Piao is far from being the only one to fall under his influence. As the mounting ideological attacks on the "four olds" (old thought, old culture, old customs and old habits) indicate, the traditional Confucian values have died hard in China and remain an obstacle to the success of Mao's revolution...
...Confucius as "stuffing themselves with food all day while never using their minds at all." He envisioned an ideal ruler of benevolence, moderation and humanity, a type that he believed had existed in a halcyon era long past. While the bad ruler relied on terror and force, the Confucian prince would restore order simply by the strength of his moral example. "If a ruler himself is upright," Confucius taught, "then all will go well without commands...
Ironically, some aspects of Communist rule are reminiscent of these Confucianist ideas. Mao Tse-tung studied the Confucian classics for six years as a youth and never entirely escaped their influence. In his four-volume Selected Works, no less than 22% of his references to other writers are to the sage or his disciples-just short of the 24% devoted to Front-Runner Joseph Stalin...
...response to military failure was rapid, but ineffectual. China looked to the West, saw American science and European reforms, and tried to imitate both. Poetry, the medium of the crumbling Confucian society, became both more worldly and more patriotic. This period was known as The Hundred Days of Reform. It ended when the empress dowager imprisoned the emperor in September...
Such a collosal military defeat could only grow out of superstition and total ignorance of Western capabilities. The Boxer fiasco was the death blow for Imperial China and its Confucian tradition. A powerful new faction emerged, led by Sun Yat-sen, and in October 1911, it brought revolution to the Chinese. The overthrow of the imperial power came with surprisingly little bloodshed--the enemies were still from without. Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung, two aids of Sun, worked with their leader for unity in the Middle Kingdom. The process was completed by Mao in 1949 with the October...