John Dewey and the rise of Marxism in China: How John Dewey inspired the educational ideas of the Chinese Communist Party

Abstract

Dewey’s philosophy of education was heavily criticized by the Chinese Communist Party in the 1950s, which led many to believe that Dewey’s education was in complete opposition to that of the CCP. However, this study intends to prove that Dewey had a tremendous influence on the early CCP members of the 1920s. Dewey’s Chinese visit closely coincided highly with the time of the reception of Marxism in China and the eventual establishment of the CCP. Both founders of the CCP had close personal relationships with Dewey, and Chen even tried to practice Dewey’s educational ideas in Southern China. As a graduate of a normal school, Mao Zedong also read and practiced Dewey’s educational philosophy. Many other CCP members read Dewey in the 1920s and then became left-wing revolutionaries. Though Dewey himself did not stand with Marxism, his idea that education is an agent of social reform paved the way for Marxism in China in theoretical and practical aspects. When an educational theory is spread abroad, it is often not accepted in a fundamentalist way, but rather in a process of collision and integration with the local tradition.

Keywords:

• John Dewey
• The Chinese Communist Party
• Marxism
• liberalism
• Mao Zedong

Acknowledgment

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Prof. Yasushi Maruyama, Kecan Shi, Henan Cheng, Yen-yi Lee and Dominic Sachsenmaier for their constructive comments on the manuscript of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Graduating from Columbia University under Dewey’s supervision, Hu Shi is generally regarded as one of the leading intellectuals of liberalism in China, and he was also Dewey’s main interpreter during his Chinese visit. During the Civil War, Hu never changed his anti-communist attitude and left mainland China in 1949, where he was targeted as a war criminal by the CCP. More details about Hu’s political stand, see, Chou and Lin (2022).

2 These correspondences were finally purchased by the National Cultural Heritage Administration of China and are now kept in the Museum of Renmin University of China.

3 Early is a relative concept. It is well known that ‘the period from the founding of the Chinese Communist Party up to the break with the Kuomingtang is known by communist historians as the First Revolutionary Civil War’ (Guillermaz, 1972, p. 67), and CCP did develop from nothing into a national political force during these 7 years. When the collaboration between the CCP and KMT ended in 1927, CCP also changed its revolutionary theory and approach dramatically, focusing on the peasants’ revolution (Lynch et al., 2017, p. 52). Therefore, the early CCP members in this paper refer to those who had been active CCP members before 1927.

4 It was Dewey’s 1920 lecture at Peking University. Dewey talked about William James, Henri Bergson, and Bertrand Russell in this lecture.

5 It is well known that young Mao once admired Hu Shi and visited him on 15 January 1920 (Hu, 2001, Vol. 3, p. 61). Mao tried to discuss several social problems with him. However, Mao’s strong Hunan dialect made their communication in vain. Since Hu was the most important interpreter of Dewey and Mao’s English was not good enough, it is reasonable to suppose that most of Mao’s understanding of Dewey came mainly from Hu’s articles and translations.

6 Dewey made a famous saying in Democracy and Education that democracy is ‘more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience’ (Dewey, 1916, p. 87). Dewey himself does not limit his conception of democracy to the single matter of extending voting rights. His Chinese readers, who translated Dewey’s democracy as Pingminzhuyi and did some work of educating the common people and raising their political awareness, were somehow in line with what Dewey defined as ‘associated living’.

7 Liu Liyan’s 2012 monography Red Genesis: The Hunan First Normal School and the Creation of Chinese Communism, 1903–1921 is an excellent work on the history of The Hunan First Normal School, where many CCP leaders graduated, including Mao. Liu comprehensively analyzes the curriculum of this normal school, as well as the attitude of the teaching staff in encouraging students to engage in social change, and argues that these factors contributed significantly to the radicalization of many of these students. Liu also notes that Principle Kong Zhaoshou (孔昭綬, 1876–1929) at the time, was influenced by Dewey (Liu, 2012, p. 74). However, Liu did not consider these two factors together and reveal their link.

8 Although it may be very controversial, the author has always harbored the hypothesis that the Cultural Revolution initiated by Mao may be closely related to Dewey’s educational ideas. During those ten years, nearly all formal schools across China were declared disbanded. Learning returned to a particular state of absolute living. Students were no longer students at schools, but students at farms or factories, learning with farmers or workers. It had disastrous consequences, of course, but at the same time it was particularly like a Deweyan idea practiced to an extreme. This is mainly a hypothesis of the author and more research is yet to be done.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Youth Project of The National Education Sciences Planning of China (EOA220549).