| After the Opium War of1840, the Chinese people shouldered the responsibility ofsaving the country. However, the principle of “learning advanced technology fromEuropeans to fight against them†didn’t rescue China, and the principle of “learningadvanced technology from Europeans to enhance oneself†didn’t achieve the purposeof making our country rich or building up our country’s military power. Neither did theReform movement of1898nor the New Deal in the late Qing Dynasty drive thewestern powers out of China. Although the grand Revolution of1911has ended thefeudal autocratic monarchy and built up the first bourgeois-democratic republic inChinese history, it ultimately failed. All those achievements made by the ChineseCommunist Party (CCP) have made us believe that mere institutional change is farfrom enough. We need to adopt the method of “making the past serve the present andforeign things serve China†from the cultural perspective and create scientific cultureprinciples. Only in this way can we succeed. This paper attempts to elaborate from theperspective of culture principles that the CCP created a set of culture principles of theirown by applying historical logic as well as dialectical materialism on the basis ofhaving absorbed the essence of traditional Chinese culture, learned Marxism andcombined the actual situation of China at that time. Their newly-created cultureprinciples include serving the people whole-heartedly, ceaseless self-improvement,democratic nomocracy, advanced culture, seeking truth from facts and revolutionsbeing supreme. Ultimately, under the guidance of these principles, the CCP have ledthe Chinese people to the completion of anti-imperialist, anti-feudal mission as well asstepping onto an independent, prosperous and powerful socialist road.This paper is divided into four parts:The first part attempts to conclude the definition of culture principles from the perspective of culture. Then, it analyzes the relationship between culture theory andculture principles in which the former originates from and embodies the latter whereasthe latter reflects the nature of the former. After that, it analyzes the main functions ofculture principles, i.e. positive promoting function and negative hindering function.The second part mainly introduces the origins of CCP’s culture principles duringYan’an period, i.e. absorbing the essence of traditional Chinese culture, Marxism andthe Three People’s Principles. The essence of traditional Chinese culture includespeople-orientedness, ceaseless self-improvement and harmony; the essence ofMarxism includes liberating the proletariat all over the world and realizingcommunism; and the essence of the Three People’s Principles includes democraticnomocracy and the Principle of People’s Livelihood.The third part mainly introduces the CCP’s coming out of a new set of cultureprinciples based on the three origins above as well as considering China’s socialcondition during Yan’an period. The new set of culture principles include serving thepeople whole-heartedly, ceaseless self-improvement, democratic nomocracy, advancedculture, seeking truth from facts and revolutions being supreme.The fourth part focuses on the historic significance and epoch value of CCP’sculture principles during Yan’an period mainly from the perspectives of Chinesecultural change, development of Marxism, Independence of our Chinese nation andsocialist modernization construction, etc. |
