Introduction
Since ancient times, Confucianism was the main religion in China. This religion was resisted and quelled by communists because it represented the treat to their traditions and political principles. At the beginning of the 20th century, China has the famous and long-lived practice of administration bureaucracy of any nation, and Confucianism was the core of this system.
Main body
In order to explain the role and meaning of Confucianism in China, it is important to discuss structure of power and social life in this state. China’s established bureaucracy was the supreme of the region. While ancient civilizations disappeared, ancient China lived on into modern times with the help of strict religious and cultural traditions. China developed the skill of administration, in its premodern form, to new heights. In China with its long history, the nature of the bureaucracy changed over the years (Molloy, 2006). As Daoism gave way to Confucianism, a much more balanced this-worldly religion, the nature of the bureaucracy began to reproduce this change (Zhjenggno et al 2007).
The Chinese government became secular, lucid, and demystified. Confucianism controlled the bureaucracy and the structure of life. The education became less spiritual and more artistic, poetic, and theoretical power (Naughton, 2007). The bureaucrats ceased being a class imbued with the divine power of the Emperor, and became a class of cultured, literary, learned, and practical-minded people. These principles and norms of life were unacceptable by communists who tried to changed the course of life and create a new ideology (Bergsten et al. 2007).
The communist regime broke the mandarin system, and Chinese society divide apart into a feudal era of “warlordism” and suppression to the colonial overlords. In contrast to China, in Russia the transition from czarism to communism was immediate, thus in China there was a long period of chaos, self-searching, cultural changes, and civil war. For ten years, until the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution established the stability and authority of the communist ideology, the communists established themselves in an amazingly pattern with the Chinese past (Naughton, 2007). The reintegration of China, which Chiang could not achieve, was made “overnight” by Mao and the communists. The Communist Party, between 1948 and 1958, brought the Chinese state together by introducing a centralized bureaucracy of trained, officials who went to the citizens of their districts and brought them economic assistance and political order. In this situation, the main task of communists was to destroy cultural and religious values of the population and their past (Bergsten et al. 2007).
Communists feared the power and importance of Confucianism in China so the only possible way to gain the power was to destroy this religion. The farmers were aware that the communists tried to communalize the land, and farmers did not want that, yet they could see that the communists were not expedient, but nation-serving (Zhjenggno et al 2007). Farmers liked the democratic ideology carried by the communist leaders. China was extraordinarily calm in those early years of communism. The system of the future seemed to be linked to the Chinese past, and this was reassuring for a nation that had begun to refuse its past culture as lesser to that of the West. Also, upward mobility through the government was reestablished (Spence, 1999).
Communist regime gave an opportunity for farmers and workers to educate their children and help them reach a better life through upward mobility in the state organization. Wish for their own land and their own gain replaced their eagerness for the communal attempt. Communist leaders were no longer venerated, but rather feared (Zhjenggno et al 2007). The communist cadres became confused themselves, and began to lie and cover up their errors. They began to push the farmers too hard, in a desperate attempt to create some kind of productive progress. The ten-year period, where China had changed itself as a state, was ending. The Cultural Revolution, with its final end of communalization of the farmers lands, wipe out the last bit of authority that the farmers loaned the regime. In such circumstances, Confucianism was rejected by farmers and workers as a thing of the past (Spence 1999).
The communist regime completely changed the urban population from the power of the party. By insisting that the party leaders had become like the mandarins of old–and this is not what communism was supposed to have meant for China–Mao destabilize the party. The party members themselves were under attack by Mao for reform and reduction of expenditure. Mao required to destroy both the new mandarinate and any references to the past. China had drifted hazardously toward chaos, and Deng did what he could in order to save his state. But the Chinese citizens are no longer compassionate in their feelings toward the administration. The fears of the Cultural Revolution run deep, and hatred and doubt of the Communist Party festers in the public (Zhjenggno et al 2007).
As the party leaders began to exhibit gluttony and corruption in relation to the recently developing market portion of the economy, the disbelieve and delegitimation of the communist leaders has increased. This structure was seen by the farmers as eminently fair. Hard word and study combined with academic talent could gain one entrance to the upwardly mobile world of bureaucracy. Moreover, promotion in the practical hierarchy was dependent upon winning administrative performance, as opposed to the kind of callousness demanded of the ancient leaders and the Russian leaders (Bergsten et al. 2007).
In spite of great opportunities and benefits proposed by the new communist regime, it could not solve the problems of spiritual life and meet century-old traditions of the nation. The Falun Gong movement was a response to false ideals and values imposed by the Communist government. The leaders of this movement, promoted the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance typical for Confucian religion. Thus a tradition of the absolute ruler was accepted within Confucian China (Zhjenggno et al 2007). Though, this issues was not seen as radical in intention, but rather as a way to goad the fully accepted kingly bureaucratic status into specific action against exact problems. The removal of the absolute leader and his substitute with a more active and competent one did become part of the Chinese political structure. This was distinctive to China, wherein Confucian rationalism had changed itself within the regal court through the elite sector of the mandarin chain of command, and to whom the divinity and magic of the emperorship had been reduced (Zhjenggno et al 2007).
It is important to note that the Confucian leaders of that period of time, because they wanted to maintain and even support the unifying emperorship, did not destroy Daoism religion, but rather confident its preservation among the Farmers. As long as the farmers believed in magic, they could believe in a divine king. Is this not the high point of the supernatural worldview in political terms? Both the political and cultural union of China were maintained, through the heavenly emperorship and magical Daoism. The Confucian bureaucracy gained real control over this charmed organization, and spread its rational policy into the cultural mix. Finally, Confucianism–in the area of everyday life–also became a culturally unifying event. But, the leaders of Confucianism showed a great deal of acceptance toward the Daoism precursor (Zhjenggno et al 2007).
Because the political culture of China created as administratively rational, but only as linked to an irrational, all powerful, inner power endowed with a magically unbreakable “manufactured” charismatic legality. In this situation, communism under Mao, until the Cultural Revolution, was important for the leaders and Chinese society as political power and as a feeling of consonance with the past. Broken out of the traditional structure, the Chinese leaders began to search for some other form of culture. Because the Chinese were being subjugated by the world’s powers, they began to study the views of these nations (Bergsten et al. 2007).
Conclusion
In sum, Confucianism represented a treat for the Communism regime in China and its ideology. Further this situation changed and many political leaders including Mao supposed the view that a democracy linked to Confucian modifications or individualism would help to control the populace. The religious tradition were not seen as mysterious but wished to establish it full-blown in China. The difficulty for democratic revolutionary group was not China’s political culture, but the supporting reality of a China alienated militarily. New Communist regime, which was founded and institutionalized, and which allowed for free communication and the formulation of new ideology, was unproductive, not because the Chinese couldn’t manage democracy, but because the political leaders did not distinguish the power and legitimacy of the self-governing and religious regime, and actively opposed it.
References
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Molloy, M. (2006). Experiencing the Worlds Religions. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 4 edition.
Naughton, B. (2007). The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth. The MIT Press; illustrated edition edition,
Spence, J.D. (1999). The Search for Modern China. W. W. Norton & Company; 2 Sub edition.
Zhjenggno, K., Link, P., Wilf, S. (2007). Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China. W. W. Norton.