earticle

영어

After founding the new China (People’s Republic of China), Mao Zedong attempted to gradually cultivate the new intellectual class fit for the Communist China by purging the traditionally educated bourgeois class or by transforming their (bourgeois) world-view into proletarian ideology. To achieve this goal, Mao initiated (the first wave of) educational reforms. In those days, Mao was a passionate education reformer; therefore, his influence on the education reforms was monumental. This study sought to examine the real reason why Mao initiated education reforms by scrutinizing his perception of education. Furthermore, this study attempted to understand the relationship between Mao’s education reforms and the intellectual class at that time. This study revealed that Mao used the education reforms that focused on the class struggle to replace bourgeois intellectuals with proletarian intellectuals by removing the bourgeois class. Although Mao and the Chinese Communist Party originally established the communist regime in union with bourgeois intellectuals, Mao’s such violent attack on bourgeois after establishing the new China was driven by his mistrust and resentment of the bourgeois class. In summary, Mao's education reforms with the focus on the class struggle were used as means to purge bourgeois intellectuals or transform their world-view and to foster the new form of proletarian intellectuals as well as to present the future directions of the Communist China’s intellectuals.