Ideology And Modern Chinese Society Changes

China had entered a miserable age since the Opium War. How could Chinese people cast off the destiny of being oppressed, bullied and enslaved by imperialist countries and obtain freedom and liberation? For over 100 years from 1840 to 1949, people had been seeking the key to this problem continuously. The exploration and struggle of "where is China heading" triggered a series of changes in the field of politics, military affairs, culture and so on. Social reality reflects in social consciousness and thus come into being the ideology of all social classes and strata. Ideology is the tool by which we understand and more importantly remold society.In view of this, I decide on "Ideology and Transformation of Modern Chinese Society" as my dissertation. It is expected to verify the correctness of the basic principles of ideology theory by referring to the special historical period of China from 1840 to 1949. Thus, the paper is designed to be composed of three parts:I. Before the period of May Fourth Movement: conflict between two great ideologies and Chinese society's heading towards modern times.The Opium War awoke those who were unwilling to be enslaved and they began to look for truth to save the nation and people. They turned to the western countries for advanced theory and then divided into three groups: reformists of the landlord class, reformists of the bourgeoisie and revolutionists of the bourgeoisie. At the same time, capitalistic ideology developed from germination to formation and then to basical maturation. Being slow in development, the capitalistic economy had not become the mainstream economic form and consequently capitalistic ideology had not become the ruling ideology. Coexisting in the society, the capitalistic and the feudal ideology were unavoidable to be conflicting with each other.1. Germination of capitalistic ideology and huge change of Chinese traditional society.Foreign contact during the period of the first and the second Opium War had raised the alarm among the think tank. Some of them began to summarize the reason of China's defeat. Those who opened their eyes to the whole world saw the advantages of western weapons anddisadvantages of the autocracy of the Qing Dynasty. They posed the idea of "Checking Foreign Countries by Learning from What They Excel in Techniques" and showed their admiration of western democracy. During this time, foreign missionaries also intentionally or unintentionally spread to China wester culture, social customs, science and technology, political theory, congressional system and democratic thought. Chinese diplomats who visited western countries were touched even more deeply by western democracy and could not help comparing it with Chinese political system. China was inferior to the West in the aspect of not only military affairs but also political system. Internal as well as external pressure caused the feudal ruling class to debate on how to manage state affairs, which urged a series of changes in Chinese people's mind: transformation from traditonally "valuing righteousness rather than interests" to "chasing interests", from "Nature does not change, nor does Tao" to "changing according to the age", from the traditional view of taking foreigners as barbarians to "Chinese thinking as the 'body', and Western knowledge only as a practical tool", from learning to manufacture western weapons to establishing modern industrial system, from valuing agriculture and press development of commerce to founding the state on industry and commerce. The germination of capitalistic ideology had an inestimable influence on Chinese society: the traditional feudal social order was lashed; the feudal class splited; capitalistic economy sprouted; modern education was born; new social forces such as compradors, capitalists and workers emerged; it happened in the old-styled countryside that some places became capitalistic raw material market and agricultural contruction was changed; more and more people were involved in the Westernization Movement (Yangwu Movement). Of course, it was impo...