Because the new communist leaders had no experience in government administration, they turned to their ideological ally, the Soviet Union, for aid and guidance. Soviet advisers responded quickly, and Chinese education and culture, which had been Westernized under the Nationalists, became Sovietized. An extensive propaganda campaign flooded the country with hyperbolic eulogies of Soviet achievements in culture and education. The emphasis on Soviet cultural supremacy was accompanied by the repudiation of all Western influence.
A major agency designed to popularize the Soviet model was the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association (SSFA), inaugurated in October 1949, immediately after the new regime was proclaimed. Headed by no less a personage than Liu Shaoqi—the second highest Chinese Communist Party leader—the association extended its activities to all parts of the country, with branch organizations in schools, factories, business enterprises, and government offices. In schools, students were urged to enlist as members of the association and to participate in its activities. In many schools more than 90 percent of the students became SSFA members. Throughout the nation, the SSFA sponsored exhibits, motion pictures, mass meetings, parades, and lectures to engender interest in the Soviet Union and in the study of Russian language, education, and culture.
Soviet advisers drew up a plan for the merging and geographic redistribution of colleges and universities and for the reorganization of collegiate departments and areas of specialization in line with Soviet concepts. Colleges and departments of long standing were eliminated without regard to established traditions or to the interests and scholarly contributions of their faculties. Russian replaced English as the most important foreign language.
From curriculum content to teaching methods, from the grading system to academic degrees, communist China followed the Soviet model under the tutelage of Soviet advisers, whose wisdom few dared question. Even the new youth organizations (which displaced the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts) were comparable to the Pioneers and Komsomols of the U.S.S.R. According to one report, at the peak of the Sovietization frenzy, the first lesson in a Chinese-language textbook used in primary schools was a translation from a Russian textbook.
Never before in the history of education in China had such an extensive effort been made to imitate the education of a foreign country on such a large scale within such a short period of time. Nevertheless, there were many reasons why the campaign did not produce many lasting changes in Chinese education. Russian education and culture had not been well known in China, and the nation was not psychologically prepared for such a sudden and intensive dose of indoctrination to “learn from the Soviet Union.” Students, teachers, and intellectuals in general, who would have reacted favourably to a reform to make education more Chinese, were skeptical of the wisdom of switching from Western influence to Soviet influence.
Chinese leaders justified the indiscriminate imitation of the Soviet model on ideological grounds. The Soviet Union was the leader of the socialist countries; Lenin and Stalin were the shining lights that led the people of the world in their struggle for freedom and equality; the supremacy of the Soviet Union had proved the superiority of socialism over capitalism.
The paramount importance of ideology in education may also be seen in other ways. Ideological and political indoctrination was indispensable to all levels of schools and to adult education and all forms of “spare-time education.” It consisted of learning basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism and studying documents describing the structure and objectives of the new government as well as major speeches and utterances of the party and government leaders. Its aim was to engender enthusiasm for the proletarian-socialist revolution and fervent support for the new regime. Class and class struggle were related concepts that occupied a central place in the ideology, and a specific aim of education was to develop class consciousness so that all citizens, young and old, would become valiant fighters in the class struggle. School regulations stipulated that 10 percent of the curriculum should be set aside for ideological and political study, but, in practice, ideology and politics were taught and studied in many other subjects, such as language, arithmetic, and history. Ideology and politics permeated the entire curriculum and school life, completely dominating extracurricular activities.
Among the most important educational changes of this period was the establishment of “spare-time” schools and other special schools for peasants, workers, and their families. Adults attended the spare-time school after their day’s work or during the lax agricultural season. Workers and peasants were admitted to these schools by virtue of their class origin. Political fervour and ideological orthodoxy replaced academic qualifications as prerequisites for further study. As a result of the Cultural Revolution of 1966–76, higher education was greatly curtailed and production and labour were emphasized. Mao Zedong, the Communist Party chairman, issued a directive sending millions of students and intellectuals into the rural areas for long-term settlement and “reeducation.” He asserted that the intelligentsia could overcome the harmful effects of bourgeois-dominated education only by identifying with the labouring masses through engaging in agricultural and industrial production. Proletarian leadership was also emphasized, as “Mao Zedong thought propaganda teams”—made up of workers, peasants, and soldiers who were well-versed in quotations from Chairman Mao but otherwise often barely literate—took over the management of almost all educational institutions.
Mao Zedong, 1966.Eastfoto
Post-Mao education
After Mao’s death on Sept. 9, 1976, the new leaders lost no time in announcing a turnabout of ideological-political emphasis from revolution to development. They decreed that all effort should be directed toward “the four modernizations” (industry, agriculture, national defense, and science and technology). The primary task of education was to train the personnel needed to speed up the modernization program.
The post-Mao schools were very different from those of the revolutionary education. The conventional school system was reinstated. Full-time schools again became the mainstay of a system of coordinated schools, with orderly advance from level to level regulated by examinations. School discipline was restored, and due respect for teachers was expected of students. Serious study was not to be overshadowed by extracurricular activities; the line of demarcation between formal and informal education was clearly drawn. The main task of students, said Deng Xiaoping, was “to study, to learn book knowledge,” and the task of the school was to make “strict demands on students in their study…making such studies their main pursuit.”
Acquisition of knowledge was again a legitimate aim of education. Academic learning and the development of the intellect returned after a decade of banishment. Efforts were made to raise academic standards not only in the universities but also in the lower schools. The “key schools,” outstanding schools that elevated the standards of teaching and learning and served as models for others, were revived. They were provided with funds for well-equipped libraries and laboratories and were staffed with highly qualified teachers. Condemned during the Cultural Revolution as “little treasure pagodas” that catered to bourgeois children to the exclusion of workers, peasants, and soldiers, these centres of academic scholarship were now hailed as the standard-bearers of quality education.