Zhou En-lai's Contribution To Marxist Propagation During His Study-in-France Period

The victory of the October Revolution greatly promoted the propagation of Marxism in China, and West Europe has been regarded as one of the most important channels through which Marxism was introduced into China. From November 1920 to July 1924, Zhou En-lai stayed in France for his work-for-study. During this period, he considered Marxism an ideologically powerful weapon to solve the Chinese issues, and therefore he studied and propagated Marxism. He made a great contribution to the successful propagation of Marxism as an ideological weapon in China. Undoubtedly, research into Zhou En-lai' s contribution to the Marxist propagation in his study-in-France period is of great importance in theory and practice for us to insist on our socialist theoretical system and to develop our socialist cause with a special Chinese characteristic nowadays.Guided by dialectical materialism and historical materialism and referring to the original works written by Zhou En-lai in his stay in France, this thesis discusses Zhou En-lai' s contribution to propagating Marxism in his study-in-France period and explores the characteristics and the historical position of his Marxist propagation process. The research combines theory with practice and uses methods both comparative and analytical, both inductive and deductive.The thesis comprises four chapters.Chapter One mainly expounds the process of Zhou En-lai' s transition from a revolutionary democrat to a firm Marxist: the formation of his revolutionary democratic thoughts; his transition to Marxism; his ultimate establishment of Marxist belief.Chapter Two sums up Zhou En-lai' s contribution to the Marxist propagation during his work-for-study period in France, which can be discussed from four aspects: First, he unmasked the nature of European capitalist society through his investigation of its crisis; second, he investigated the European labor movements and revolutionary movements there; thirdly, he spread Marxism and expounded the guiding principles of the Party as well animadverted different kinds of antagonistic thoughts; and finally, he analyzed the basic issues of CCP and the Chinese revolutionary issues.Chapter Three analyzes the main characteristics of Zhou En-lai' s Marxist propagation, which includes three aspects: applying theoretical study to the struggle practice, using the view of Masses of History as a thinking weapon of social transformation in China, attempting to promote the process of using Marxism to analyze and solve the problems of Chinese revolution.Chapter Four discusses Zhou En-lai' s historical place in Marxist propagation during his work-for-study period in France. He worked hard to propagate Marxism, thus cleared the effect of the anti-Marxist thoughts from the work-for-study students and workers from China, and further strengthened the influence of Marxism among them. He helped promote the Marxist propagation in China. He cultivated and sent back to China masses of revolutionary cadres to support the civil revolutionary causes. All these demonstrate that Zhou En-lai had an important place in the history of Marxist propagation shortly after the establishment of CCP.