Confucianism

ethical and political teachings that arose in ancient China and exercised an enormous influence on the development of culture, political life, and social structure in China for more than 2,000 years.

The foundations of Confucianism were established in the sixth century B.C. by Confucius and further developed by Mencius (Meng-tzu), Hsiin-tzu, and other disciples.

From its inception Confucianism expressed the interests of part of the ruling class (the hereditary aristocracy) and played an active role in sociopolitical struggles. It called for the strengthening of the social order and of forms of state administration through strict observance of ancient traditions, idealized by the Confucians, and through set forms of interrelations among people in families and society. Confucians believed that the existence of exploiters and exploited (in Confucian terminology, men doing mental labor and men doing physical labor) was a universal law of justice, natural and legitimate: the former were to rule, and the latter to submit to and to support the former through their labor. Struggles among various schools of thought in ancient China reflected the sharp social and political battles waged between social forces of that time. Consequently, there were contradictory interpretations by Confucianist thinkers of China’s fundamental problems, such as the concept of heaven and its role, the nature of man, and the relationship between ethical principles and the law.

Ethics, morality, and state rule were the fundamental concerns of Confucianism. The concept of jen (“humaneness”) as the highest law of interrelations between people in society and in the family is the fundamental principle of Confucianist ethics. Jen is achieved by moral self-improvement through observance of li (“decorum”)—norms of behavior, based on deference and respect for elders and superiors, respect for parents, devotion to the sovereign, and politeness. According to Confucianism, jen may be achieved only by the elect, the chün tzu (“noble men”), that is, the members of the highest strata of society. Commoners, or hsiaojen (literally, “little people”), were not capable of achieving jen. This opposition of “noble persons” to commoners and the affirmation of the superiority of the first over the second, frequently encountered in the writings of Confucius and his followers, is a clear expression of the social bias and class nature of Confucianism.

Confucianism devoted considerable attention to problems of “humane” rule, based on the deification of the power of the ruler. This idea existed before Confucianism but was further developed and substantiated. The sovereign was declared to be the son of heaven (t’ien-tzu), who ruled by heaven’s command and fulfilled its will. The power of the ruler was recognized by Confucianism as sacred and granted from above, by heaven. Believing that “to rule means to rectify,” Confucianism attributed great significance to the teaching of cheng ming (“the rectification of names”), which urged that each person be given his place in society and that his responsibilities be strictly and precisely defined. This found expression in the words of Confucius: “The sovereign must be a sovereign, the subject a subject, the father a father, the son a son.” Confucianism called on the sovereigns to rule the people not on a basis of laws and punishment but through virtue, through an example of highly moral behavior, on a basis of common law. The sovereigns were asked not to burden the people with heavy taxes and obligations.

Mencius (fourth-third centuries B.C.), one of the most prominent followers of Confucius, even voiced the idea that the people had the right to overthrow a cruel ruler by means of insurrection. This idea was determined, in the final analysis, by the complexity of sociopolitical conditions, the presence of powerful vestiges of primitive communal relations, acute social struggles, and strife between the kingdoms that then existed in China. Criticism of individual rulers, contrasting them with “wise” and “virtuous” sovereigns of the distant past (that is, ancestral tribal chiefs)— Yao, Shun, and Wen Wang—was at times allowed in such a situation by Confucianism, which was directed at strengthening the existing social order. In conjunction with this, Confucianism preached the social utopia of the ta t’ung society (the “great unity”), the “golden age” in the history of China, when there were supposedly no wars or strife, when there was equality of all men and genuine concern for the people.

Confucianism subsequently evolved by adopting many features of other ancient Chinese ideological currents, particularly Legalism. This was an objective necessity because of the formation of the centralized Han Empire, the rule of which required a flexible and ramified administrative apparatus. Confucians who had mastered the science of administration that was based on paternalism and traditions and who had assimilated Legalist methods of rule relying on law and punishment were able to head the administrative apparatus. The reformed Confucianism of the Han period strengthened its position in a society of centralized despotism. One of its main representatives was Tung Chung-shu (second century B.C.), who combined Confucian ethics with the natural philosophy and cosmological ideas of Taoism and the school of natural philosophers (yin-yang chid).

In 136 B.C. under Emperor Wu Ti, Confucianism was proclaimed the official doctrine and after this remained the ruling ideology for more than 2,000 years (until the bourgeois Hsin-hai Revolution of 1911), supporting feudal-absolutist despotic power. Religious, mystical, and reactionary features were intensified. Great emphasis was placed on the ideas of heaven as a predetermining divine force, of the dependence of man and society on the will of heaven, of the divine origin of the sovereign’s power (the son of heaven), of the loyalty of the subject to the sovereign, and of the rule of the son of heaven over all peoples of the universe. In this way, Confucianism, as a ruling ideology that for centuries preached the cult of the emperor as the executor of the will of heaven instilled in the people fanatical devotion to the son of heaven, Sinocentrism, chauvinism, and a disdainful attitude toward other peoples.

Confucianism as an ethical-political and religious system penetrated all aspects of societal life and in the course of many centuries determined norms of morality, family and social traditions, and scientific and philosophical thinking, hindering their further development and establishing fixed stereotypes in the consciousness of the people, particularly among the intelligentsia. Confucianism was further strengthened after an acute struggle with Buddhism in the seventh and eighth centuries A.D. An important role in this struggle was played by the well-known writer and thinker Han Yü (768–824), who sharply criticized Buddhism and defended Confucianism.

The next stage of Confucianism dates to the Sung period (960–1279) and is linked with the name of Chu Hsi (1130–1200), a well-known historical scholar, philologist, and philosopher who was the founder of a revivified Confucianism—the philosophical system of Neo-Confucianism. Neo-Confucianism absorbed and preserved the basic principles of ancient Confucianism, including its reactionary theses about the permanence of the social order, the natural division of people into higher and lower and noble and base, and the supreme role of the son of heaven—the sovereign of the universe. Neo-Confucianism was also placed at the service of the ruling class and officially recognized as the orthodox ruling ideology, which until the modern period inhibited and retarded the development of sociopolitical and philosophical thinking, hindered progress in science and technology, and contributed to the isolation of China from European civilization and its progressive scientific and technological ideas. It was one factor determining the relative backwardness of China in the modern period. Neo-Confucianism played the same role in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam as in China.

In the late 19th century the bourgeois reformer K’ang Yu-wei and his followers made an unsuccessful attempt to modernize Confucianism, which was entering into increasing contradictions with conditions of social life (these conditions were changing with the development of capitalistic relations in the country). Confucianism was dealt a severe blow during the period of the May Fourth Movement (1919), when along with the social and political struggle there were demands to replace the old, obsolete culture with a new, democratic, and more progressive one. Nevertheless, even after this Confucianism continued to play an important role in the social life of China. During the rule of the Chiang Kai-shek Kuomintang (1927^9), the ideology of Confucianism was placed at the service of Kuomintang reaction. Even after the formation of the People’s Republic of China, Confucianism has continued to exercise a certain influence on various segments of the population, their social psychology in particular. The Maoist leadership has also come under its influence, arming itself with the Confucian principles of Sinocentrism and of authoritarian rule of the supreme leader over unconditionally submissive masses and with the personality cult ideology. The campaign of “criticizing Lin Piao, criticizing Confucius”carried out by Maoists in 1970–75 was purely a political move aimed primarily at Lin Piao and his followers.