A Research On Chen Duxiu's Socialist Thought

In the development of Chinese Socialist thought, Chen Duxiu's was one of the path breakers. As a vanguard who introduced Socialism into China. Chen Duxiu's life wan full of changes and ups and downs. In his life, he not only chose scientific socialism as his career, but also contributed a lot on these questions, such as: how to realize socialism in China and how to construct socialism in China? In one word, the contents of Chert Duxiu's thoughts on socialism were complicate and multi-angular. In this paper, Chert Duxiu's thought on socialism was studied from the following aspects:The first part in a brief review and appraisal on the formation of Chen's thought on socialism. As a forerunner of socialist thought in China, Chen believed that socialism, humanism and Darwin's theories on evolution were the greatest achievements of his time. After his careful diagnosing on Capitalism, he pointed out that because of its attaching shortcomings and imperfectness, the replacement of capitalism will be of certain. And socialism is the system to replace it. He fiercely attacked pseudo-socialism in the society and chose scientific socialism as the root of his thought. Embarking from the reality of China, he advocated not only to choose socialism as the counter measure to solve all the problem in China, but also to launch war against the upper class to realize socialism in China, just as what the Russians have done. In the period of National Rebellion, Chen developed his thought by giving up his idea on immediate revolution, and divided the whole socialist revolution into two phase—the democratic phrase and the socialist phase. He was the first to advocate democratic revolution in China. He insisted on the development from democratic resolution toward the socialist one. His thought on socialism was much upgraded thereby, he realized that the replacement of capitalism was not a subjective requirement, but the result of social evolution let believed that socialism is not egalitarism. What the socialism should try hard to developed its economy, for the purpose of the better-off of the majority. Therefore, national capitalism should be the leading economic power in the transitional stage of Chinese revolution, and other four kinds of economy should not be totally got rid of. In his latter years, Chert insisted that the essence of socialism was to developer productive power of a society. He criticized extreme nationalism and advocated the development of capitalism by which socialism will win its basic needs. His discussion on the relationship between socialism and democracy was another important component of Chen's thought. He emphasized the importance of democracy in socialist party and stressed that there is a continuum in democracy from capitalism to socialism. He insisted that democracy is the basement of socialism and the development of socialist democracy is vital.The second part is a summary on the characteristics of Chen Duxiu's thought from careful research, the characteristics of his thought can be summarized as following; the bookish feather of his theories; the vanguard nature of his scientific socialism; the foresight on some issues; non sequaciousness; unceasing exploratory; a mixture of correctness; relatedness with CPC's development in its early years.The third part is an overall appraisal of Chen Duxiu's socialist thought. His thought on the following issues were agreeable, namely, his division of China's socialist revolution which became the source of the thought of Chinese New Democratic Revolution; His idea that capitalism should be developed because it provides material basin for socialism; His thought on socialism in his late years which is still useful for the development of chinesefied socialism. And on some issues, Chen Duxiu was obviously mistaken, such as he was stubborn to carry out the "urban-centered method" in revolution, His complete negation of Stalin and his appraisal on the nature of Soviet Union.The fourth part is a reconsideration of Chen's socialist thought. As an important figure in the history of CPC, objectivity and fair appraisal are needed in the research of Chen Duxiu. He should not be totally repudiated because of his mistakes, and also he could not be unrootly upraised because of rehabilitation.