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The Problems of the Intelligentsia in
The People's Republic of China: 1949-

1984 - A Sociological Perspective

3y

Xu Xiaohe

A Thesis
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree

MASTER OF ARTS

Departmant of Sociology

1985

ABSTRACT

The Problems of the Intelligentsia in the People's

Republic of China: 1949-1984 -— A Sociological Perspective
By Xu Xiaohe

This study, from the perspective of the sociology of the intelligentsia,
describes the external social, political and economic factors which
affected the productivity and the quality of professional life
of intellectuals in the People's Republic of China. Further, it
explores how these external factors remain unsolved problems facing
Chinese intellectuals.

In order to specify these external factors, Chinese governmental
policies towards intellectuals are examined. Through a documentary
analysis and historical comparison, this study explores the very
strong anti-intellectual attitude during the Cultural Revolution
period held by the Chinese government and the Chinese_pe0p1e2 The
highly centralized social system was not favorable towards Chinese
intellectuals as well as improving the quality of professional
life. The atmosphere of discrimination and prejudice against intellectuals
lowered productivity and led to poor working and living conditions
of Chinese intellectuals. Increased participation of intellectuals
in decision-making and increased autonomy to perform intellectual

work, particularly in academic settings are essential to improving

ii

the position of Chinese intellectuals in Chinese society.
New tendencies and trends in policies towards intellectuals
are examined and an agenda for future research on Chinese intellectuals

is charted.

iii.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest gratitude and thanks to
my academic advisor, Dr. Christopher K. vanderpoool. Without his
help in all phases of this study -— his encouragement and his criticism
- this thesis could not have been undertaken.

In addition, two members of my committee, Dr. John Useem and
Dr. Jay Artie, gave careful and critical readings to later drafts
of this manuscript. The questions and issues they raised caused
me to think more broadly and deeply about the subject and future
research. I thank them for their wonderful suggestions.

Special appreciation is also due my wife and my parents. Without
their encouragement and love, this thesis would have never come

into being.

iV’

CONTENTS
Page
ABSTRACT ................................................. ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................... iv
LIST OF TABLES ........................................... vii
LIST OF FIGURES .......................................... viii
Chapter I. INTRODUCTION .................................. l
1. Importance of Research Area.................... 1
2. Research Sources and Methodology .............. 4
3. Definitions of Terms .......................... 7
II. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF CHINESE INTELLECTUALS:
TRADITION AND MODERNITY ...................... 10
III. A SURVEY OF CHINESES INTELLECTUALS:
INDIVIDUALS AND INSTITUTIONS ................ 15
l. Rethinking the Definition of Chinese
Intellectuals ................................. 17

2. Institutions and Population of Chinese

I\)
O

Intellectuals .................................
IV. AN INVESTIGATION OF WORKING CLASS INTELLEC-

TUALS: IN CHINA: COMPOSITION AND CLASS

STATUS ....................................... 28
1. Class Status Criteria ......................... 33
2. Abusiveness During the Cultural Revolution .... 31
3. Rectification and Reassessment ................ 35

V.MAJOR PROBLEMS FACING INTELLECTUAI IN CHINA .... 32

1. Ideological Remolding .........................

2. Autonomy ......................................
3. Leadership ....................................
4. Discouraging Conditions .......................
VI. CHANGES IN POLICIES AND FUTURE TENDENCIES ....
VII. CONCLUDING REMARKS ..........................
APPENDIX I. ..............................................
APPENDIX II. .............................................

BIBLOGRAPHY .0...0......O0.0.0.000...0.0.0.0000...0......O

vi

72

74

LIST OF TABLES

Page

TABLE I. CHINESE INTELLECTUALS IN STATE ORGANS o

ENTERPRISES ......................................... 25

II. INTELLECTUALS TRAINED IN WEST s JAPAN ........... 33

III. CHINESE INTELLECTUALS AND WORKERS TRAINED

IN THE SOVIET UNION ................................. 35

IV. ESTIMATED NUMBER OF INTELLECTUALS AND STU-

DENTS SENT TO THE COUNTRYSIDE SINCE 1933: BY

PROVINCIAL 9 EMPLOYMENT STATUS ...................... 43

V. GRADES AND SALARIES OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES IN

CHINA ............................................... 53

VI. INCONSISTENCY OF RANK WITH GRADE OF PAYMENT

(1931) .............................................. 55

VII. TIME EXPENDITURES OF THE MIDDLE-AGED INTEL-

LECTUALS IN CHINA (ZHEJIANG PROVINCE) 1983 .......... 57

VIII. BREAKDOWN RED EXPENDITURES BY MAJOR

CATEGORIES (1973 ESTIMTE) 0.0.0....OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 53

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Page
FIGURE I. THE STRUCTURE OF CHINESE INTELLECTUAL
INSTITUTIONS ........................................ 21
II. THE STRUCTURE OF THE CHINESE ACADEMY OF
SCIENCES ............................................ 22
III. PUBLICATIONS IN THE P.R. CHINA ................. 55
IV. CHOOL ENROLLMENT AND GRADUATES OF HIGHER

EDUCATION IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ......... 8

0)

viii

I. Introduction
1. Importance of Research Area

The sociology of the intelligentsia has been internationally
recognized and acknowledged as a new growing branch of sociological
inquiry.(l) This young branch of sociology, a systematic and comparative
study of those people who participate in the creation and administration
of cultural values and knowledge, originally emerged from both
the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of science.

The sociology of the intelligentsia centers its attention principally
on the social roles of the intelligentsia or intellectuals and
examines social, political and economic factors (social environmental
variables) which affect the performance of these roles in society.

Karl Mannheim (1936) noted in his book Ideology and Utopia that

the sociology of knowledge is mainly concerned with those persons

in society who are the bearers of intellectual activity, namely

the intellectuals. He argues that the composition of this group,
their social and class backgrounds, the method by which they are
recruited, their organization, the rewards and prestige they receive,
and their participation in other spheres of social life constitute
some of the more crucial issues in the sociology of knowledge.

To a certain degree, overlapping with this viewpoint, the sociology
of science has also developed an important theme which deals with

the social formation and institutionalization of scientists (Merton,1977).

Joseph Ben-David (1971) summarized two major approaches within

the framework of the sociology of science, they are the interactional
approach and the institutional approach. The former one heavily
concentrates on the social relationships between scientists and
scientific community. At sametime, it takes into account the productivity
of scientists. The institutional approach to a large extent pays
attention to the contents of scientific knowledge rather than scientists
themselves.

Related to the productivity of scientists (or intellectuals),
Assen Yessifov (1979) stressed that the professionalization of
intellectuals is a key to understanding what factors affect the
work of intellectuals. Both Edward Shils (1972) and YOssifov agree
that the sociologists are mainly oriented to an external or social
environmental approach to the study of intellectuals and attach
priority to values, world-view, institutions and broad socio-political
settings confronting intellectuals. For Chile, the structure of
intellectual institutions and the institutionalization of intellectual
production are affected by such external social factors as the
freedom to pursue creative work, adequate research facilities and
living conditions for the intelligentsia, and state policies towards
them.

Unlike the sociology of knowledge which often deals with very
abstract philosOphical problems in social knowledge and unlike
the sociology of science which studies scientists only, the sociology
of the intelligentsia examines the general conditions which structure

the roles of intellectuals in society, not only that of scientists.

It specifically defines and conceptualizes the intelligentsia or
intellectual, and categorizes their social and class status as

well as analyzes the social roles played by and the social position
occupied by the intelligentsia.

In this thesis, I will apply some sociological methods and
knowledge from the perspective of the sociology of the intelligentsia
to Chinese society. The goal of this application is to examine
and find out how the external factors (social, political and economic),
including state policies affect the performance of social roles
by Chinese intellectuals. In other words, this study will examine
how Chinese governmental policies and attitudes towards intellectuals
affected the treatment received by Chinese intellectuals and the
roles they played in Chinese society. The following questions will
be explored:

- What are the social characteristics of Chinese intellectuals?

How are they defined by the government? How are they organized?

- In reflecting upon the characteristics of Chinese society,
do Chinese intellectuals form an independent social class or a

social stratum? What is the government attitude towards this classification?

- What social positions-do they occupy.in society? And what
kind of social values and views do they hold?

- FUrthermore, do Chinese intellectuals have access to the
process of decision-making in Chinese society and do they have

a certain degree of freedom or autonomy to.carry out their research

and other creative activities?
- Finally, what is their quality of life (income, housing

conditions, health care etc.)?
2. Research Sources and methodology

One of the research methods which might be appropriate for
a study like this would be to construct a questionnaire first,
then draw a sample and to do survey of Chinese intellectuals. Data
thus collected could be used in a statistical analysis.

Another method would be to become directly involved in the
daily activities of intellectuals to observe and interview them
through a field method approach. By employing the field method
along with interviewing, first hand data could be easily gathered.
But because I am unable to return to China to conduct such a study,
using field or survey methods is an impossibility. Instead, the
only feasible alternative for this study is to analyze documents
published in China. Thus, the documentary method will be used.

Fortunately, original and official sources are available for
exploration. Much of this material comes from Chinese periodicals
as well as Party and non-Party newspapers. The sources which are
the most frequently employed in this study are :

1) Renmin £1252 —I\§.Bm (People's M), the organ of the
Chinese Communist Party, contains all Party's and the governmental
policies and directives:

2) m "flflqfig Flag), Party's journal, serves as the

Party's theoretical guide;

3) Beijing Review, weekly English publication of P.R. China,
officially provides the most comprehensive news reports for foreign
readers:

4) Guangming M fig 831 (Enlifltenment Daily), published
in Beijing by a minor party - the China Democratic League, is
a newspaper specializing in cultural affairs and discussion of
the Party's policies affecting intellectuals:

5) China Reconstructs, English journal published monthly by
the China Welfare Institute, focuses on Chinese People's daily
lives.

Through reviewing literature and gathering data from various
documents, I have discovered that pioneer and previous studies
in the area of sociological research on Chinese intellectuals are
very few and limited. References and data are difficult to find.
This absence of sources is largely due to the separation of contact
between China and Western countries for about thirty years and
the unavailability of statistics from Chinese sources. The social
and academic separation of contact between China and the West is
a main factor affecting this documentary study. Before the 19803,
very few foreigners were allowed to travel in China, and certainly
until recent days, foreign scholars could not receive permission
from the Chinese government to do systematic research in China.
Another aspect of this disconnection is the unavailability of contemporary
studies on Chinese intellectuals. As a result, this study has to

rely on documentary analysis. Yet this reliance on documents poses

another limitation. For more than ten years, some statistics and
other necessary data are not available. First of all, because of
the political chaos in China, such work has not been done: secondly,
because of the nonexistence of sociology until 1980, studies from

a sociological perspective are unavailable.

Yet there has been some studies of the Chinese intelligentsia.
Chronologically they are as follows:

1) Before 1949: Mote (1971), Lou Tsu-Kfuang (1974) and Grieder
(1981) extensively discussed the intellectual tradition, social
values and the development of the Chinese intelligentsia:

2) 1949-1976: Chai (1975), Sigurdson (1980). Goldman (1981)
and OECD (Organization For Econimic Co-Operation and Development,
1977) briefly described the development of science, technology
and intellectuals in China after the revolution, and in detail
explored the governmental policies towards intellectuals as well
as effects on them:

3) 1976-1984: Sigurdson (1980) and Suttmeier (1980) examined.'
the changes in policies and how those changes affected contemporary

Chinese society, especially Chinese intellectuals and their future.

Hewever, these documents and books will be supplemented by
my personal experiences and observations. In addition, based upon
additionally limited sources, the Chinese governmental policies
towards intellectuals during the ten years of the Cultural Revolution
(1966-1976) will be compared to the period of the post-Cultural

ReVolution (1976-1984). Through this comparison, I will try to

ascertain the effects of government policies on the Chinese intelligentsia.

3. Definitions of Terms

Some terms I will present in this study have to be specified
and defined in accordance with the social context of Chinese society
and the specific usage by the Chinese people. The terms "intelligentsia,"
"intellectuals" and "professionals" are rooted in the cultural
and societal history of China and their meaning, their application

changed through time, therefore, they must be conceptualized carefully.

1) Intelligentsia and Intellectual

Within the framework of the sociology of the intelligentsia,
the terms or concepts of "intelligentsia" and "intellectual" are
defined in varying ways. At times, they are used interchangeably.
Alatas (1977) argues that intellectuals as a social group should
be distinguished from the intelligentsia. By "intelligentsia" he
means those who have gone through higher formal and modern education,
specialists and professionals, and those who have acquired a higher-
1evel education by other means. Gouldner (1979) pointed out that
there are at least two elites within the new class (intellectuals):
a) intelligentsia whose intellectual interests are fundamentally
"technical” and b) intellectuals whose interests are primarily

critical, emancipatory, hermeneutic and hence Often political.

In China, the term "zhi shi fen zi" 0311514950 - learned people
- is now used as the equivalent to the English word intellectuals
and came into use only about 70 years ago. Prior to that, the usual
term was "literary men," and in ancient China, "scholars." Each
term reflected the fact that intellectuals were literate in a generally
illiterate society and made their living through the written word
(Fei Xiaotong, 1983). The term in China, therefore, is broader
than its usage in the West, where it applies mainly to academics
or professionals. Hewever, in the Chinese context, people do not
make the difference between the term of the intelligentsia and
intellectual in general, without a consideration of their "technical"
or "political" distinctiveness. Hence, whenever I use the terms
”intelligentsia" and "intellectual" in this paper, I do not distinguish

them rather I will use them interchangeably.

2) Professional
In China, the popular usage of the term "professional" occurs

when it is used to convey the idea of great skill or proficiency
at performing some tasks, and to refer to an individual in such
a manner is to accord him high degree of prestige and respect.
In this sense, the professional is a person who enters into an
occupation which requires an extensive educational and training
background.

Since I have principally used Chinese publications, my definition
of the professional must conform to the more or less original conception

of his role. In China, in addition to educational and training

backgrounds, the actual work experiences are an essential condition
for becoming a professional. Thus the professional is defined in

my study as the person whose level of education and actual work
experiences determine his occupation as a specialist or an expert

in certain areas like technician in factory, professor in university
and so forth. This group of people, their social status may overlap

with intellectuals in Chinese society.

Footnotes
(1) The VIIIth Werld Congress of Sociology was held in Toronto,
August 1974. As a direct result of the panel's discussion for the
Congress is a publication -‘Thg.lntelligentsia and Intellectuals
edited by Aleksander Gella. This book provides a detailed discussion
of the emergence of the sociology of the intelligentsia from an

international view of sociological studies.

II.Historical Overview of Chinese

Intellectuals: Tradition and Modernity

In speaking of Chinese intellectuals, the cultural and social
tradition of China should be considered. Ancient China has had
about a dozen different schools of traditional social thought besides
the Confucian school. Each of them has had its independent development
and a discernible influence upon the social development of Chinese
society. Several religious and philosophical schools, like Taoism
founded by Lao Tzu, Legalists led by Han Feitzu, the Mb school
headed by Mo Ti, had a strong impact on the development of intellectuals
and became significant components of 8...... culture.

Confucianism (Confucius, 551-479 8.0.), advocating political
loyalty and favoring the status quo, was accepted as the orthodox
ideology by every emperor since the Han Dynasty of 206 8.0.. Confucian
classics were used as the content of the civil service examination
which provided opportunities for entrance into the government and
for advancement of social status. In the long history of Chinese
feudal society, a well-known slogan was advocated by the followers
of Confucius to encourage peeple to be literate and intellectualis:

"A good scholar will make an official.". This Confucian doctrine
implies that the people in ancient China evaluated everything else
as inferior, except being a learned person, an erudite scholar.
Hence, the scholar is superior not only because of possession of

knowledge, but also because of access to power and the imperial

lO

bureaucracy. Scholars were officials who wielded power on behalf
of the emperior's government and as a result, were part of ruling
class. Certainly, they had a high degree of social prestige. They
also received a great deal of respect from society and enjoyed
a high social position. For instance, as Weber mentioned, the literati
or scholar enjoyed freedom from corporal punishment in ancient
China (Garth and Mills, 1958:434).

According to Confucian doctrine, society was divided into two
primary categories - the rulers who worked with their minds and
the ruled who worked with their hands. In short, the Confucian
school as an official ideology suggested that the intellectual
must serve the ruling class, sincerely believe in authority, maintain
the social order, and protect the old, stable life style. In other
words, Confucian conservatism was essentially a defense of the
established order - a defense, that is, of the dynasty and of

the interests of the dynasty's servant-participants (Grieder, 1981:20).

The Confucian beliefs of self-containment and social harmony
at both the individual level and societal level were challenged
by the large scale social changes of the nineteenth century. In
1840, when the feudalistic system and the great Central Kingdom
were defeated by the British in the Opium War, "social harmony"
(2) disappeared and the "closed door" (3) of Chinese society was
broken. The scientific and industrial civilization of the West

aroused the Chinese people to realize the gap between the development

11

of the world and China and to challenge Confician ideology by introducing
advanced Western science and technology. Confucian scholars failed

to find answers to these challenges that would secure the survival

of their world. A great crisis for Confucianism emerged in Chinese
society.

From 1917 to 1919, the "New Cultural Movement" (4) and the
"May Fourth Mbvement" (5) raised their clarion call: "Down with
the Confucian Shopl": "Science, Technology and Democracy" became
the banner of these two movements. At that time, a great number
of Chinese students were sent abroad for the purpose of learning
science and technology from foreign countries. They were concentrated
in several countries: Japan, France, Germany and mostly the United
States. As soon as these students returned to China, they formed
a loose community of Westernized intellectuals. Their Western-oriented
social thought and activities gradually came to dominate Chinese
intellectual life in later years as they occupied crucial social
positions both in political and academic circles. In 1934, 3,856
out of 7,205 college professors in China or 53 per cent of college
professors were educated abroad (Chai, 1975:22).

These Westernized intellectuals regarded "science" as the dethronement
of the old educational system in China, especially the imperial
examination system. They advocated writing in the vernacular rather
than the prose written in the classical literary style. Further,
they opposed the domination of the Confucian doctrines and morality
and encouraged people to learn Western science and technology.

By "democracy", they meant, first of all, favoring pluralism over

12

elitism in social thought and academics: and secondly, favoring
representative government over feudalism. In summary, the May Fourth
intellectuals were anti-Confucianists and revolutionaries who believed
that only science and technology could modernize China and overcome
what they perceived as Chinese backwardness.

After the Russian October Revolution (1917) and following the
struggle against the feudalist regime in China, Marxism and Leninism
were brought to China. The revolutionary intellectuals such as
Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Mao Tzetung, and Zhou Enlai (all of them
founders of the Communist Party of China), introduced and disseminated
Marxist principles to and among Chinese workers and peasants. They
promoted the integration of Marxism into the Chinese workers' movement,
preparing an ideological foundation for the revolution. Since the
founding of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai in 1921, modern
Chinese intellectuals were divided into two camps. On one side
were bourgeois intellectuals who accepted bourgeois ideology, preached
pragmatism,'and took capitalist society as a model for the develOpment
and modernization of China. On the other side were revolutionary
intellectuals who believed in Marxism and Leninism and took the
Soviet Union as an example of how to modernize China by establishing
a new socialist system in China. This study will focus only on
the so-called revolutionary intellectuals who later took over the

Knomintang government and set up the socialist regime in China.

The integration of intellectuals with workers and peasants

was the ideology and orientation of the Communist Party of China.

13

over many centuries, for most of the Chinese workers and peasants,

the knowledge possessed by intellectuals had been used more to)
oppress them than serving to improve their lives. Therefore, during
the Chinese revolution, they tended to be suspicious of intellectuals
and were prejudiced against them. This discrimination against intellectuals
existed in the Chinese Red Army (later the Eighth Route Army and

then the Peeple’s Army). There were soldiers who were prejudiced

even against doctors and wireless radio operators. During the Japanese
invasion, in order to avoid this discrimination, the Party formulated
a policy to unite all who could be united in the war effort to

help build hospitals and factories for munitions and daily necessities
in the armed forces. In army base areas intellectuals were essential,
but the problem of discrimination and distrust of intellectuals

did not end. On the contrary, in the 19403 in the liberated areas,
especially Yanan, intellectuals were examined on the suspicion

of being bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals. Based on

an estimation made by the Party, most of the Chinese intellectuals

who were in the revolutionary camp came from bourgeois families

and had received capitalist education. Because of these reasons,
intellectuals had to be ideologically remolded, reformed, and changed.
This long term policy of "thought reform" is still ongoing long

after the revolution and, parallel to it, the problem of discrimination
has been handed down and has become a tragedy for the lives of

Chinese intellectuals.

Footnotes

14

(2) "Social harmony" is equivalent to the expression of the
social stabilization, and which is stemmed from Chinese philosophy,
especially from Confucianists' and Taoists' cosmology. These schools
of thought believed that the all-enfolding harmony of the impersonal
cosmic function can be seen to serve analogous, yet qualitatively
different ends from those provided by a cosmology oriented towards
a supreme power that knowingly directs the cosmos. This harmony
also can be applied to human society, that is, a person can orient
his/her own life towards social harmony in the secular world much
like the harmony of the cosmos. For Confucianists, the emperor
is a symbol of the supreme power. The social order or social estate
system can not be changed. Otherwise, harmony will be destroyed.
Hence, the Concept of harmony that is embodied in Confucian philOSOphy
refers to both social control and the maintenance of the social
order (Lung Khanrhai, 1974:14).

(3) "Closed door" is a figure of speech refering to the foreign
policy carried out by the government of the Qing Dynasty. This
policy was strongly against any relationships or connections with
the world outside of Chinese society. It was an "isolationist"
policy.

(4) and (5) The "New Cultural Movement" and the "May Fourth
MOvement" all took place at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The goals of these movements are to change the old social and educational

systems, destroy feudalistic morality and praise science and technology.

15

III. A Survey of Chinese Intellectuals:

Individuals and Institutions

Before examining how governmental policies affect the productivity
and creative work of intellectuals in China, we have to be aware
of their social identification in terms of occupation, social position
and institutionalization. Or to put it simply: Who are they?

When reading Chinese periodicals and newspapers, one often
has the impression that after a long period of malignant neglect,
there has been a surprisingly rapid and remarkably effective surge
of interest by Chinese sociologists and other social scientists
in questions and issues pertaining directly to intellectuals. Very
interestingly, Chinese newspapers and magazines have been recently
reemphasizing that Chinese modernization requires a strong contingent
of intellectuals able to master modern science and technology.
Because of the practical needs requiring the co-operation of intellectuals,
the Chinese intelligentsia received a slight prais. Yet, a necessary
and good definition of them has not been available. A society without
a theOretically based and understandable definition of the social
roles and contributions of intellectuals to the development and
advancement of that society has a tendency to look down upon the
intelligentsia. A lack of such a definition might lead people towards
nonrecognition of the importance of the intelligentsia for a society.

China is this type of society.

16

1. Rethinking the Definition of Chinese Intellectuals

Since 1949 the earliest definition of Chinese intellectuals

was directly borrowed from The Encyclopedia of the Soviet Union,

 

which defined the intelligentsia as a social stratum that is composed
of persons who are particularly engaged in mental work - they
. are scientists, engineers, teachers, writers, doctors and most
of the professional personnel in a society. This definition, to
a certain extent, has explicitly and implicitly answered the question
of who belongs to the intelligentsia and affirmed that the intelligentsia
is a social stratum (6) rather than a social class (7) in Chinese
society.

About three decades later, a more comprehensive definition
appeared in the article entitled "China's intellectuals - Part
of the Werking Class" by Luo Fu (1980), who states: "In China,
the term 'intellectual' embraces professors, scientists, senior
engineers and writers who are commonly known as highly qualified
intelligentsia as well as ordinary technicians in factories, primary
school teachers and other mental workers with professional knowledge".
In fact, in this second definition nothing appears that is new
at all. It is just a reassertion of former policy. Hewever, three
aspects within the definitions must be underlined: 1) the intelligentsia
are not an independent social class, but a social stratum which
could be attached to the working class or any ruling classes; 2)
the intelligentsia as a social phenomenon, are part of a social

\

division of labor in which intellectuals are mental workers who

17

are divorced from manual labor: 3) the intelligentsia are characterized
by certain professional occupations.

By examing the definition given by the Chinese government,
we are also aware of some shortcomings. First of all, since the
term "intellectuals" is adopted from a foreign vocabulary, we have
to trace back the original meaning linguistically. Secondly, the
definitions failed to reveal the social functions or characteristics
of Chinese intellectuals. Therefore, the work of counteracting
these shortcomings has to be done here.

From etymology, we know that in Europe, however, "... to be
among 'die intellectuals' in Germany, or the ’intelligenty' in
Russia, or 'les intellectuals' in France generally signified that
the persons in question were of the educated, professional middle
class as opposed to the commercial or industrial one" (Feuer, 1978).
In keeping with this tradition, intellectuals in the developing
countries are also defined as persons who are engaged in thinking
about ideas and nonmaterial problems using the faculty of reason.

In other wolds, persons possessing knowledge, or in a narrow sense,
those whose judgement, based on reflection and knowledge, derives
less directly and exclusively from sensory perception than is the
case of non-intellectuals (Alatas, 1977).

Both linguistical and theoretical definitions remarkably Suggest
that even for Chinese society, intellectuals share a number of
similarities with intellectuals in other countries in terms of

their social functions. These features could be summed up: 1) intellectuals

18

are recruited from all classes though in differing proportions;

2) they are to be found supporting or opposing various cultural

or political movements: 3) their occupations on the whole are nonmaterial,
being for the most part scientists, philosophers, artists and journalists;
4) to a certain extent they remain at a distance from the rest

of society, forming a group of their own; and 5) they are not merely
interested in the purely technical and mechanistic side of knowledge,
culture also belongs to their world of thought. Based on these
characteristics, the Chinese Party assumes that intellectuals by

virtue of their knowledge expertise have special access to certain

achievements considered to be "cultural values,"

and who therefore,
usurp its leadership. Thus, a new definition of intellectuals began
to emerge: intellectuals are that section of the educated people
which have aspirations to political power either directly by seeking
to become society's political rulers or indirectly by directing
decisions made in the society.

So far, I have discussed the different definitions from varing
perspectives. Taking account of these considerations, I will redefine
Chinese intellectuals as a social stratum who posess professional
knowledge and are engaged in mental work, who occupy some crucial
social positions and who seek to attain political as well as technical
leadership at the level of the superstructure. They are carriers
of Chinese culture and tradition, gatekeepers of Marxian ideology
and creators or evaluators of new sciences and technologies. Intellectuals,

therefore, are essential to the maintenance of Chinese civilization

and for acceleration of its modernization.

19

2.Institutions and Population of Chinese Intellectuals

Intellectuals, to a certain extent, form a loose-knit community
that is somewhat separate and aloof from the rest of society. In
addition, Chinese intellectuals are confronting different situations
and contexts which are structured by the Chinese social system
and the political environment.

The notable organizational apparatus for intellectuals (see
Figure I) that has been created in the People’s Republic of China
is designed not merely to enforce political and social discipline,
but also to provide the means whereby popular participation can
be mobilized, and through which it can be manipulated. One can
not find any "free intellectuals" in China as in the Western countries.
On the contrary, Chinese intellectuals have been well organized
within certain distinguished social organizations in which the
activities and creative work of intellectuals must be committed
to the goals of these units both personally and officially.

The organizational apparatus includes research institutes,
universities, cultural industries and factories under the control
of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and various ministries. Above
these, there is the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist
Party which in co-operation with the State Council governmental
policies, including policies towards intellectuals, are designed
and issued. Under the State Council, the State Commission of Scince

and Technology is then responsible for the overall planning, co-

2C)

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21

Figure II

The Structure of the Chinese Academy of Sciences’

 

 

 

Chinese Academy of Sciences
2; I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I j
Academy of Social Sciencfl f Academy of Natural Science
1 _ I I
Literature 1 Enformation Mathematics H
Foreign Literature) . 1 Economics J LPhysics
Linguistics '— ‘ World Economy Chemistry M»
History Fay—{Agricultural Economics] Eeography {—
_ _ 1 - i ,
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J Philosophy "'1' Technological Economics} [ New Techniques}

 

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' The items in this figure under both the Academy of Social Science of China
and the Academy of Natural Science of China are all research institutes.

22

Ordination, organization, and administration of the activities
of intellectuals. Under its supervision, the Chinese Academy of
Sciences (Academia Sinica) is the most important center for scientific
research and has at times had a semi-autonomous position. This
position is derived from the fact that it runs its own institutes
which are mainly in basic and theoretical sciences and that it
is today at least partly shouldering the responsibility for post
graduate training in collaboration with the Ministry of Education.
These institutions or organizations and their linkages and relationships,
all shown figured in Figure I and II.

Moreover, the administrative structure at the national level
and the institutions of intellectuals demonstrated in Figure I
and II give a simplistic presentation of some of the major central
agencies responsible for the activities of intellectuals, specifically
for scientific and technological researchers. These activities
of Chinese intellectuals in China can be found in the following
sectors from Figure I:

1) research institutes under the Chinese Academy of Sciences:

2) universities and colleges (including both high schools and
elementary schools) under the Ministry of Education:

3) research institutes under the ministries:

4) provincial and municipally controlled research:

5) research institutes in factories under Defense.

.During the Cultural Revolution, including the period up to

the Fourth National People's Congress in 1975, the institutions

23

0f intellectuals were crippled by sending intellectuals to the
countryside and factories for ideological reformation. During the
period of the post-Cultural Revolution, some new institutions have
been rehabilitated and established. In Figure II, ostensibly some
new institutes under the Chinese Academy of Sciences are found,
such as the Institute of Sociology, the Institute of USA, the Institute
of Japan, etc.. Restrictive policies towards intellectuals within
these institutions have been relaxed through the responsibility
system and "advertising-for-intellectuals" system which means that
intellectuals themselves could be moved vertically and horizonally
in accord with their professional capabilities and talents. Governmental
policies towards intellectuals are likely to continue to undergo
considerable changes, but the overall philosophy of central control
over intellectuals is likely to remain.

Demographically, at the time of the founding of new China
in 1949, there were about 3 million intellectuals, including teachers,
professors, scientific and technical workers, literary and art
workers, journalists and physicians. The number increased to 5
million by 1957. Unfortunately, owing to the years of upheaval
in the Cultural Revolution (1986-1976), statistics for intellectuals
in this period are unavailable.At the present, China has 25 million
intellectuals according to the official publication ( "How Many
Intellectuals in China?" in Beijing Review. No.13, march 31, 1980).
Table I enumerates the number of scientific and technical personnel
in state organs and enterprises. Non-scientific intellectuals,

like writers, journalists and so forth are excluded, because of

24

the unavailability of statistics. By taking a look at the Table
I, several observations can be made: 1) The_percentage of Chinese
intellectuals, especially scientific and technological personnel
in the totality of Chinese population is fairly low as compared
to other industrially developed countries. In 1977, the United
States had 1.2 million scientific and technological personnel and
the Soviet Union had 900,000. In the same year, China had only
roughly 200,000 scientific and technological personnel ( Egg Selected
Mg; 235 Xiaoping. Beijing: People's Publication, 1983). 2)
Despite a high number of intellectuals, less than half of them
have obtained a college education or its equivalent: most of them
are without higher education, but have skills or experiences that
are still classified as intellectuals. Table I illustrates that
out of 5,714 intellectuals in state organs, only 2,495 have a college
or university education or training (43.7%). 3) The largest proportion
of these intellectuals are found in cultural and educational circles
and, within than people tend to have a comparatively higher percentage
of level of higher education. (74.3% in teaching: 51.1% in research).
In general, these three features are also characteristic of other
excluded intellectuals.

As a_result of this type of centralized management and administration
of institutions of intellectuals, freedom or autonomy in creative

work and activities is a serious problem,

Footnotes

(8) Social stratum in China, usually refers to different social

25

 

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26

levels of people within the same social class which is determined

by social and economic position in society. For example, within

the proletarian class in Chinese society, there will be different
groups or levels, such as intellectuals, manual workers, and peasants.
Therefore, in China, they are all part of the working class or
proletarian class.

(7) Social class is a totality of persons who are classified
according to their economic relationships to and possession of
the means of production as well as political power. For Marx, in
capitalist society, there are two antagonistic classes, namely
the capitalist class and the proletarian class. For Stalin, there
is no such an antagonism in socialist societies as in capitalist

societies. In China, after Mao, this classification also was abolished.

27

IV. An Investigation of WOrking Class

Intellectuals In China: Composition and Class Status

As we have discussed earlier in this paper, the definition
of the Chinese intelligentsia given by the government declares
that intellectuals can be attached to a range of different classes
and are by no means always to be found among the ruling class.

In conjunction with this principle, in China, intellectuals are
regarded as a part of the working class. This class identification
is an application of Marxist theory of class analysis or social
stratification, and theoretically it has posed several difficult .
issues.

A distinguishing aspect of Marxist class analysis is its insistence
on examining the underlying material basis of observed social distinctions.
The critical issue in this class analysis is the relationship to
the means of production. According to this analysis, in capitalist
society most intllectuals are, together with manual labors, ruled
by others. Thus, position is to be determined by identifying a
person or category of persons as: exploiters, neither exploiters
nor exploited, and exploited. Intellectuals could fit.into any
of these classes. Actually, this type of classification is still
used by Chinese Marxists and involves the utilization of class
terms appropriate to capitalist society with a corresponsing implication
that such terms as working class and bourgeoisie retain their validity

- decades after a socialist transformation of economic ownership.

28

This is at least a formal adherence to Marxist principles of class
analysis, but the classification itself is problematic and complex.

In the ideology of Maoism, Chinese society is a class-based
society in which the task of preventing the restoration of capitalism
is far from being completed. Therefore, the class stratification
and class status of the intelligentsia must be identified and emphasized.
Otherwise, the Chinese people will be confused by not knowing who
is a capitalist and who is a socialist. Based upon this ideology,
in China some less theoretically sound measures such as family
background or individual world view are used to determine intellectual's
class status as well as social position. Now let us turn to a detailed
analysis of how Chinese government decides the class status of
intellectuals and how it enacts policy which is built on the fundamental
class estimation and furthermore of how government policy affects

intellectuals.

1. Class Status Criteria

On August 4, 1950, the Chinese government announced for the
first time that "intellectuals can not be regarded as a class.
The class origin of intellectuals is determined by his family background
accordingly, and their own class status will be decided by the
way of his income source." Furthermore, "intellectuals who possess
professional knowledge and technique, and who are employed by the

government's cooperatives, or private agencies, organizations and

29

schools, in other words, whoever is engaged in mental work and
paid in wages as the major sources of income for living, their
class status equals that of office workers or ataff members (the
measurement is applicable for both cases: pro-revolution and post-
revolution). Thereby. those people are a part of the working class"
( "How to Decide Class Status of Intellectuals" in The Collection
Hong Kong: contemporary China Research Institute ).

These official words were confirmed again by the former premier
Zhou Enlai in 1956 on behalf of the Party Central Committee, he
said: " By far the large part of them (intellectuals) have already
become working personnel for the country, are already serving socialism,
and are already a part of the working class."

The determination of the class status (8) of intellectuals
can be clearly delineated whenever they are categorized by the
following criteria adopted by Party:

1) family background or class origin: those intellectuals who
are from the old society (before 1949) and come from non-working
families will be labelled as bourgeoise:

2) world view or ideology: intellectuals from non-working class
backgrounds who affiliate themselves with the working class and,
often acting as a vanguard party, engage in a long-term and difficult
political struggle together with the working class in the course
of which such close ties are formed between them and the working
class that they can be considered as working class:

3) socio-economic: use of income sources and access to the

30

means of production as criteria for determining class standing
is ambiguous and vague in China: because in the Marxist framework,
income and ownership are applicable to a capitalist society rather
than a socialist society: such an application'to Chinese society
is questionable.
Hewever, in the early 1950s, governmental policy towards intellectuals
was fairly favorable, and intellectuals were seen as a part of
the working class, but they had to be "united" with the working

class through re-aducation and thought reform.

2. Abusiveness During the Cultural Revolution

The classification of Chinese intellectuals as working class
members should not be romanticized or idealized. On the contrary,
when the Gang of Four came into the power during the Cultural Revolution,
Chinese intellectuals were not treated as a part of the working
class at all, but were the target of oppression by the "dictatorship
of the proletariat." Criteria such as family background to determine
class status had been over-emphasized and abused, and the formula

to unite, educate as well as reform intellectuals had been distorted.

One of the most notorious of the Gang's doctrines held that
the more knowledge one possesses, the more non-revolutionary he
is. Along with the extensive criticism of intellectuals and the
large-scale effort to find ways of carrying on intellectual work

without or with a minimum of intellectual specialists, the difficulties

31

for intellectuals and their knowledge were exacerbated by the stress

on avoiding the restoration of capitalism and anything bourgeois

or petty-bourgeois. Intellectuals were viewed by the Gang of Four

as the "stinking nineth category" of class enemies, which was a

derogatory expression coming after the eight "targets of proletariat
dictatorship," they were landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries,
bad elements, rightists, renegades, enemy agents and capitalist-

roaders.

For the Gang of Four, intellectuals from the old society (before
1949), from the non-working class families or being educated abroad
especially in the Western countries, are bourgeois intellectuals.
These people were few in number, but obstinate and would be difficult

to reform according to the ideology of the Cultural Revolution.

Table II outlines the number of intellectuals trained abroad.
From 1850 to 1962, the number of those people trained and awarded
degrees in all fields are 36,300. Some of them left the mainland
before Or during the Chinese revolution. Therefore, those who stayed
in the People's Republic and served the Communist government are
only about 5,500 (in science, engineering or medicine). This calculation
does not take into account losses during the period as the result
of death or retirement. The number of those actually working in
the mainland in 1952 may have been 15 to 20 percent less than shown
here. Nevertheless, intellectuals who were criticized as bourgeios
were a very small proportion within the population of Chinese intellectuals,

so the Gang's criticism did not only aim for this small portion,

32

 

 

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33

but more broad, more extensive.

.Besides the old generation coming back to China from the West,
a second criteria for oppression emerged in the early 1980s -
intellectuals who were sent to and came back from the Soviet Union
were considered "revisionists".(9) The term revisionist is related
to the ideological separation between China and USSR. Consequently,
these intellectuals became scapegoats of the political struggle
and the erroneous conclusion drawn from the "International Communist
Mbvement." (10) From the Gang's point of view, these intellectuals
were representatives of bourgeois authority, simply because most
of them were leading personnel in science and technology. Table
III reveals that a majority of Chinese intellectuals who were trained
in the Soviet Union, however, were low-level technicians rather
than advanced scientists and engineers (20% against 3%). Among
students, high school graduates were more numerous than university
graduates (14% against 5%), and often lacked the necessary grounding
in both science and language to take full advantage of study in
the Soviet Union. These students were to receive important work
assignments immediately upon returning from the Soviet Union. As
bourgeois ideology was seen as strongly influencing intellectuals
educated in the West, those who were trained in the Soviet Union
were also seen as being similarly affected by Soviet revisionism
through the educational process. For the Gang, they‘were more dangerous
than bourgeois intellectuals trained in the West because they were

. much younger than the latter ones.

34

Table III. Chinese Intellectuals and Wor-
kers Trained in the Soviet Union

 

 

 

 

 

Category Number Percent
Distribution
SOIentIsts T,SOO 3
Instructors 1,200 3
Students 7,500 19
Undergraduate 5,500 14
Graduate 2,000 5
Technicians 8,000 21
Workers 20,000 53
Total 38,000 100

 

:*Percents may not add to total because of rounding.
Source: OECD Science and Technolo in the People's
Republic 2; China, 1977. 51'”—

Again, according to the Gang's doctrine, from 1949 to 1956,
within these seventeen years, the educational policies of Maoism
(integration with workers and peasants) were by and large not carried
out: on the contrary, this educational system led to a situation
in which the bourgeoise "exercised dictatorship" over the proletariate
and not vice versa. As a result, students trained in those years
were basically considered as bourgeois in their outlook. On the
whole, Chinese intellectuals were seen as enemies of the working
class. The Gang of Four's view was essentially anti-intellectual
and such anti-intellectualism peaked in the years of the Cultural
Revolution. It was only rectified after the downfall of the Gang

of Four.
3. Rectification and Reassessment

After the Cultural Revolution, on the behalf of the Central

35

Committee, Deng Xiaoping in 1978 stated that majority of intellectuals
"have become a part of the working class itself. The difference
between them and the workers is only a diffrence of division of

labor in society." He also pointed out that "we are happy to say

the greater part of the scientific and technological workers have
stood on the side of the working class" (Deng Xiaoping 1978). Why

are Chinese intellectuals now considered part of the working class,
and how do we account for this labelling?

Intellectuals from the old society were mostly employed by
the capitalists. Like wage labors, they were in essence, mental
workers creating surplus value for capitalists. Since the Chinese
liberation, these intellectuals have changed from serving the old
society and privately owned enterprises to serving the new society
and state owned enterprises. Some of them have made outstanding
contributions to the Chinese revolution and socialist construction.
From this perspective, it can be said that the majority of them
have been part of the working class. '

Intellectuals who took part in the revolution before the founding
of new China had long ago turned into proletarian revolutionaries
and intellectuals of the working class. Also quite a number of
workers and peasants who took part in the revolution have themselves
become intellectuals. Hence they are intellectuals of the working
class.

Intellectuals trained by the new government, have in the main
received new education (11) and worked under the new leadership

after graduation. Classifying them as bourgeois intellectuals is

36

not reasonable.

In practice, Chinese intellectuals will benefit from this new
analysis of their class standing and gain from the changes in
the political and technical leadership of China. To the government,
even such criteria as the political outlook as a determinant of
class status are theoretically and practically unsound for the
mobilization of intellectuals in China's effort to modernize its
society. At the same time, this label does not reduce the gap between
mental and manual labors, but rather facilitates a widening of
the gap by removing grounds for opposition to policies favoring
intellectuals. Aside from favoring intellectuals, the policy of

considering intellectuals as a part of the working class will differentially

affect those sectors of the society already separated by wide cleavages
of inequality, principally rural residents and women, both of whom
are very seriously under-represented at higher levels in the educational
system, as well as in present leadership structure.

However, anti-intellectual attitudes in Chinese society at
present have changed a great deal since the Cultural Revolution
period. Yet for Chinese intellectuals, some unresolved dilemmas
remain - ideological remolding, autonomy and the access to the
leadership. In the following sections, I will state these problems
first, then see how they are affected by governmental policies

and how intllectuals respond to them,

Footnotes

(8) Class status in China usually refers to class ranking classifying

37

people into different class groups.

(9) Revisionist is a derogatory term used in China specifically
referring people who are Marxists and Leninists but move away from
their basic teachings and principles.

(10) International Communist Movement is an international workers'
movement that was based on the First, Second and Third International
led by Marx, Engles and Lenin.

(11) New education here refers to a new educational system
set up after the Chinese revolution, which aims at teaching the
Chinese people to use knowledge to serve the people and society

and not to exploit people.

38

V. Major Problems Facing Intellectuals in China

The major problems of discrimination and prejudice experienced
by Chinese intellectuals have arose primarily from the attitude
of the Chinese government towards intellectuals. The Chinese government
undoubtedly needs the services of intellectuals, but at the same
time distrusts them by regarding them as vacillating elements and
dissenters. According to this view, in order to be of use to the
Chinese socialist society, intellectuals must be reformed ideologically.
They must rid themselves of all ideas and attitudes incompatible
with the dominant Marxian ideology. They have to acquire the correct
worldview to be a part of the working class by integrating themselves
with workers and peasants, or in general, to‘be a part of a community
of proletarian intellectuals as was discussed in the preceding
section. Thereof, no matter whether they are products of bourgeois
society or of the new society, Chinese intellectuals must undergo

the process of "ideological remolding."

1.Ideological Remolding

Ideological remolding is central to governmental policies attempting
to transform the worldview of intellectuals. Those policies are
formulated on the basis of an image of the nonrevolutionary character
of Chinese intellectuals in pre-revolutionary society. Class background

and, for many, foreign training created doubts about the political

39

reliability of intellectuals because of their receptivity towards
bourgeois education. For the Chinese government, the long term
goal of this policy has been to replace so-called "bourgeois intellectuals"
with "proletarian intellectuals." Yet in the short term, a policy
for handling the former is needed. For the Chinese people, it is
acceptable if the Chinese government distrusts those intellectuals
trained abroad to serve the new society. In contrast with this
policy, it is contradictory and questionable for the government
to suspect intellectuals trained by new China - a socialist society.
This puzzle emerged in the years of the Cultural Revolution when
the Gang of Four over-emphasized and exaggerated this policy.

Two main channels were used by the government, especially by
the Gang, to remold the ideology and thoughts of intellectuals:
1) political meetings (studies) to enforce participation in political
activities, namely to politicize and philosophize both academic
and non-academic activities of the intelligentsia: and 2) physical
labor to integrate intellectuals with workers and peasants. As
one of the editorials in the Party's newspaper said in 1359: "in
concrete work, we must proceed from the actual situation, take
practical steps and use effective methods to do painstaking ideological-
political work, and actively promote the ideological revolutionization
of the intellectuals. We must organize them to creatively study
and apply Chairman mac's works, guide them to actively throw themselves
into class struggle, encourage them to fight self and repudiate
revisionism conscientiously and remold their bourgeois world outlook"

( "How to Look at Intellectuals Correctly" in Beijing Review, February

40

21, 1969.).

Ideology , as the aggregate of the ideas, beliefs and modes
of thinking characteristic of a group, a nation, class, caste,
profession or occupation, religious sect, political party,etc.
is conditioned and determined by the activities people participate
in, the cultural environment people face and, the socio-economic
position people occupy. In order to avoid dissent away from Marxist
ideology and to continue the enforcement of ideological education,
participation in political meetings had been institutionalized
during the Cultural Revolution. An amount of time to ensure this
activity was officially set aside on Tuesday and Saturday afternoons.
Besides this fixed time for political indoctrination, the activities
of intellectuals had been politicized and philosophized to meet
the needs required by the government. Academic work and research
of intellectuals must serve the needs of socialist society, must
be in essence of a materialist orientation according to the typology
of Marxist philosophy and, no intellectual activity could be separated
from its political implications. Let us take research as an example.
Some social sciences such as sociology, anthropology and psychology
could not be studied and discussed at that time because they were
philosophically regarded as idealist. Intellectuals who attempted
to develop their interests in such social sciences were politically
seen as bourgeois revisionists. Chinese intellectuals, therefore,
could not be aloof from politics. There is no neutral position
for them between capitalism and socialism, between materialism

and idealism. Thus, political studies served as means to reach

41

the end of establishing the socialist ideology among Chinese intellectuals.

To what extent and to what degree, can Chinese intellectuals
convincingly be certified politically and ideologically qualified
and sound? The unequivocal answer is that no expert (intellectual)
is any good unless he is "Red". Therefore. the question of the
ideology of intellectuals for the government is simplisticly formulated:
ideological qualifications of Chinese intellectuals are "Redness

before Expertness,"

or in other words, socialist-minded before
vocationally proficient. Reversibility of this order is not tolerated.
"Redness" here refers to the requirement the Chinese government
imposes on every individual intellectual to have a political attitude
which is compatible with socialist society, to rid themselves of
bourgeois individualism and to establish collectivism to serve

the Chinese people wholeheartedly ( "Redness and Expertness" in

 

The Collection of the Policies of the Communist Party of China

 

Towards Intellectuals. Heng Kong: Contemporary China Research Institute.).

 

"Redness" is the key to judging an intellectual and his political
standing. If one gains mastery over a branch of science or technology,
but is not actively involved in political activities as defined
by "Redness", one's talent is not reliable and trustworthy

In China, political studies are not the only way for intellectuals
to remold their ideology. They are strongly encouraged to participate
in other levels of Chinese society such as factories, communes
and army where intellectuals could have opportunities to integrate

themselves with workers and peasants. The government truly believed

42

that through physical labor with supervision from workers and peasants,
intellectuals could be re-educated and reformed. In most of cases,
intellectuals, even students, were sent to the countryside to gain

practical experience for carrying out Mao's directive: ... they
(intellectuals)_must, however, be re-educated by the workers, peasants
and soldiers under the guidance of the correct line, and thoroughly
change their old ideology." This move eventually affected between

20 million and 25 million intellectuals and students. Table IV

Table IV. Estimated Number of Intellectuals and Students Sent
g: Ehe Countryside Since 1968: By Provincial and Employmnet
a us

Total Em lo ment Status
Area 1969-1975 1975 Cadres TechiiciafiE PoIiticaI

 

 

Non-farm Instructors

Employment
China 10,000 -- -- -- --
Heilong- ,
jiang 493 -- -- -- 51
Henan 360 -- 12 40 --
Hebei 500 51 200 50 40
Hunan 450 -- 16 -- --
Hubei --- -- 16 -- --
Mongolia 210 20 3 .-- --
Gansu 640 -- 6' 27 --
Guangdong 560 80 15 60 --
Liaoning 1,000 240 50 -- 90
Shandong 110 —- 8 -- 43
Yunnan 600 -- 70 --

 

Source: Science and Technology in the P.R. China. OECD 1977.
Numbers in thousands.

indicates the numbers of intellectuals and students who were sent

to the countryside at the provincial level from 1969 to 1975, totalling

43

about 10,000 thousand. Actually, the nationwide movement of sending
intellectuals and students to the countryside began in the middle
of the 19608 and the year of 1975 was the end of it. Due to the
unavailability of statistics, Table IV only partially illustrates
those numbers for seven years. Another fact is that Table IV has
information only on eleven provinces and is thus quite limited.
However, this table is still illustrative in the absence of alternative
sources.

As a consequence of this movement and governmental policy,
Chinese intellectuals could not carry on their regular professional
activities. For instance, at that time, enrollment in universities
was much lower than before the Cultural Revolution. One report
indicated that only 4,300 students were enrolled at Beijing University
as compared to 10,000 before 1966, and 1,135 as compared to 6,000
at Fudan University in Shanghai ( "The Long Road to Normalcy" in

Far Eastern Economic Review, October 1, 1973.). The decline of

 

 

enrollment not only affected the educational system, but also weakened
and crippled the culture setting as well as the economy of Chinese
society. Since that time, this governmental policy and movement

now are seen as a failure of high human and social cost. The sacrifices
and hardships endured by intellectuals were a tragic consequence

of Mao's ideology, also of the Gang's ideology.

2 . Autonomy

Autonomy - self-regulation, and self-control are synonyms

44

for freedom on the part of work groups to regulate their own work
behavior (Pavalko,1971:9). Autonomy usually is expressed in two
distinct but related ways for intellectuals. First, intellectuals,
as organized collectivities, seek to control matters relating to
the activities of their members. The second concern is the autonomy
of individual intellectuals: the right of resistance to supervision
by someone from outside the profession, and the resistance of unqualified
judgments on the quality of his or her professional work from non-
professional perspectives. These two aspects of autonomy for intellectuals
must somehow be obtained by every individual intellectual in order
to fully perform their social roles and to assure their productivity.

For a long time, the Chinese intelligentsia has struggled to
achieve such an autonomy or freedom for their professional work
both internally and externally, that is to say, through their enthusiasm
to create a social environment appropriate to sustain the right

and power to determine their own course of professional development.

In ancient China, there was a precious tradition of fostering
and sustaining often competing knowledge systems during the Spring
and Autumn and the warring States Period in history (5th-3rd century
B.C.), when the transition from slave society to feudal society
was reflected ideologically in the emergence of different schools
of thought. Each of these schools had their own teachings and doctrines
(see section II). There were lively and heated debates among supporters

of the different schools and this tradition became well-known as

45

"the contending of a hundred schools." This tradition provided
an advantageous climate for intellectuals.

After the founding of the new China the Chinese government
carried forward this tradition of support for the flourishing of
science and culture by formulating a policy of "letting a hundred

flowers bloom, letting a hundred schools of thought contend." Implementation

of this "Two Hundred" (l2) policy allowed people to air their views
freely and permitted each to hold diverse opinions and views in
exploring and studying various scientific and intellectual subjects.
In this way, people were able to make their own comparison of the
rightness from wrongness of different schools of thought. This
policy moreover, strongly impelled intellectuals to realize that

if only one kind of opinion is allowed to the exclusion of others,
people will become academically retrogressive, stereotyped and
rigid. Supposedly, this policy of "freedom of independent thinking,
freedom of debate, freedom of creation and criticism, and freedom
of to express one's own views and to maintain, to reserve one's

own views" (Lu Dingyi, 1956), was guaranteed by the Chinese government.

During the Cultural Revolution, the Gang of Four opposed this
supportive policy and Mac himself crudely destroyed it by imposing
hierarchical authority on intellectuals and their professional
lives. They proclaimed that every thing should be done in compliance
with what Mao dictated, and forbade any mention of "letting a hundred
schools of thought contend." Thus totaletarianism and a dreary

atmosphere prevailed over the Chinese academic world. They dismantled

46.

scientific research institutes, banned numerous books and‘disintegrated
the community of scientific and cultural workers whenever they

spoke out with an ideology different from Marxism. If one did speak

out, he was deprived of political and citizen rights and was dismissed
from the Party (if he was a member). Many were not allowed to perform
their professional work, were sent to the countryside or factories,

and even were put into jail. A number of brilliant Chinese intellectuals
had been coerced until they died, often by suicide.

Mbst of time, the Chinese government powerfully exercised direct
supervision over intellectual work. Therefore, in fact, Chinese
intellectuals had no autonomy, they could not self-direct their
professional lives. Especially during the Cultural Revolution,
most of intellectuals had been assigned work by the government
in which most of them could not fully utilize their knowledge and
skills. These governmental assignments were made as soon as students
graduated from schools, colleges and universities without regard
to their knowledge competencies or skills. 0n the contrary, the
organizational needs of the State came first. We do not know exactly
how many intellectuals had been assigned unrelated jobs or been
away from their own fields, but we have information which reveals
that until 1980, 160,000 intellectuals including those people who
were mistreated in 19503 have been rehabilitated and reassigned
work commensurate with their talents and specific knowledge.

Governmental supervision and control over intellectuals also
includes the Party usurping the direction of the research of intellectuals

and centrally planning the research areas that intellectuals are

47

supposed to conduct. The direction of research is determined by
the State plan and then through social organizations reaching to
the individual level. Let us take the Plan on Science and Technology
(1978-1985) as an example. The Eight-year plan makes all-round
dispositions for the tasks of research in 27 spheres, including
natural resources, agriculture, industry, national defense, transport
and communication, oceanography, environmental protection, medicine,
finance and trade, culture and education, in addition to the two
major departments of basic and technical sciences. Of these, 108
items have been chosen as key projects in the nation-wide endeavor
for scientific and technological research. This plan is aiming
at modernization of China and thus narrowing the gap between China
and the advanced industrial nations laying a solid foundation for
catching up with or surpassing advance world levels in all branches
in the following 15 years ( "Outline National Plan for the Development
of Science and Technology, Relevant Policies and Measures" in Beijing
Review, No. 14, April, 1978 ). In order to fulfil this plan, intellectuals
have to use their work to meet these needs.

0n the whole, Chinese intellectuals need a relaxation of political
constraints to zealously pursue their professional work and to
fully play the social roles expected of them by Chinese society.
Without a certain degree of guaranteed autonomy, the backward conditions

of science and technology will not be improved rapidly.

3. Leadership

48

Modern industrially advanced societies need intellectuals and
students who will join their ranks in the future and universities
to train them. In short, such societies are dependent on intellectuals
and their work has a large scale impact on their development. In
China, modernization of society generates similar needs and dependency
on intellectuals. In the pre-Cultural Revolution period, Chinese '
organizations and administration gradually evolved towards a system
in which the leadership was held by competent, experienced intellectuals
who acquired directorship positions. In favoring intellectuals
and giving free rein to the importance of their leading position
in society, Chinese governmental organizations usually had one
or more deputy directors, at least one of them was a nonprofessional
person with political and administrative responsibilities. The
directors and deputy directors as non-political personnel and professionals
leading their staffs were assigned to their position by two main
committees composed of the organization's memebers. One committee
dealt with vocational work or professional work, and the other
dealt with administrative affairs. In addition to these bodies
of professional leadership, there was a Party committee in each

organization to control the activities and work of Chinese intellectuals.

Ironically, this system of leadership favoring intellectuals
and structurally differentiating academic, administrative, and
political matters was challenged and attacked somewhat during the

Cultural Revolution. In line with Mao's ideology: "the working

49

class is the leading class," intellectuals who held leading positions
were criticised as exercising anti-revolutionary authority over
the proletarian masses, and in most social organizations, the leadership
and power were taken over by the working class - the worker's
propaganda teams. The focal points of replacement of power politically
with the working class were education, the mass media and cultural
affairs. For instance, education and the school system according
to Mao's estimation, were the monopoly of the exploiting classes.
Conditions improved after the Chinese liberation, but, in the main,
education and schooling were still monopolized by bourgeois intellectuals.
Some students from these schools had been able, for various reasons,
to integrate themselves with the workers, peasants and soldiers
and serve them. Others did not. In a state governed by the dictatorship
of the proletariat, this was a serious situation - the bourgeoise
contends with the proletariat for leadership ( "The working Class
Must Exercising Leadership in Everything" in Beijing Review, No.
35, August 30, 1968.). Therefore, the worker's propaganda teams
entered the field of education or other social organizations in
order to enforce the integration of intellectuals with the working
class.

The new philosophy and the system of the working class leadership
practised in the Cultural Revolution devalued intellectuals through
its strong anti-intellectualism. Consequently, a large number of
Chinese organizations have been led by nonprofessional, untrained
Party leaders and for the time being, the general situation has

been that the layman leads professionals. As a result, Intellectuals

50

have tremendous difficulties in gaining access to leadership and
participation in decision-making process. Hence, re-entrance to
leading positions for Chinese intellectuals seems to be a problem
even though the current government has tried to promote intellectuals
and bring them back to that position. Several factors account for
these difficulties, first of all, the old Party cadres who do not
have a good education are biased against intellectuals. Because
this bias questions the political reliability of intellectuals,
they face extreme obstacles in becoming Party members. Without
Party member status, intellectuals are not allowed to occupy some
crucial leadership positions.

In summary, the struggle against intellectuals increased in
intensity and shrillness until the Cultural Revolution had become
a movement without parallel in scale, in sweep, in strength, or
in momentum. The ideology, freedom and socio-political positions
of intellectuals in Chinese society have been challenged and despised.
As a result, their creativity, productivity and contributions to

scientific and technological innovation have been limited.

4. DiscOuraging conditions

We have discussed from a macro-view the major problems that
Chinese intellectuals have faced within the social structure of
Chinese society. In this section, I will focus on the quality of
life of Chinese intellectuals. Ignorance, discrimination and prejudice

towards intellectuals fostered by the Chinese government have penetrated

51

into every corner of Chinese society and have given rise to poor
living conditions and an unfair incentive system.

Poor living conditions, lower income, heavy chores and responsibilities
in work are well-known problems for intellectuals in China, especially
middle-age intellectuals who total 5.7 million throughout the country.
Middle-aged intellectuals are defined as those who have received
a secondary technical school or college education, and are now
between 36 and 55 in age ( "Caring For Middle-aged Intellectuals"

in Beijing Review, No. 33, 1982:5). In contemporary China, these

 

intellectuals are the backbones of scientific research and teaching.
A survey of universities in Southwest China has shown that 80 percent
of those actually teaching are in this category. But owing to the
unfavorable policies of the government in the past 15 years, particularly
during the Cultural Revolution, middle-aged intellectuals have

not faired well. Their average monthly income has been only 50-

70 chinese yuan ($ 30) which is much lower than they could earn

in the 1950s.(13) At that time, material incentives had been used

by the government, and their contributions were monetarily rewarded.
Incomes of intellectuals during the 509 were considerably higher
than those of nonskilled workers as is clear from Table V. College
lecturers at grade 12 (14) received 179.5 yuans monthly, about

eight times the 23.5 yuans earned monthly by nonskilled labors

at grade 30. This discrepancy received considerable attention from
the government and, as we already pointed out, one of the chief

aims of the Cultural Revolution was to eliminate this gap between

incomes or wages of manual labors and intellectuals.

52

Table V. Grades and Salaries of Public Employees in Chinaj503)

 

 

 

 

Position

Grade Monthly Industry Academic Civil

salary Manage- Engineers Adminis- *Faculty Service

(in yuan) ment tration
1 Central Gov.

Leaders
2 Chairman CCP
3 Staff Office
4 Heads, Gov-
nors of Prov.
5 , Ministers
6 Univ. Pro.
7 Bureau & Dep.
8 Univ. ViceProfes- Heads, Ambas-
Pres. sors sadord
9 Office Chiefs
10 Managers Grade 1 Asst.
11' Grade 2 Profs.
12 179.5 Grade 3 Lectres.
13 159.5
14 141.5 Dept. Mgrs. -- 4
15 127.5 Office Heads.
16 113.5 Section Heads. 5 Asst. Section Chfs.
Lectres.
17 101.5 Dept. Sec.
' Heads.
18 89.5 Grade 6
19 80.0 Technics.
20 72.0 Shop Foreman
21 63.5 Profsssinnals
Nonprofessionals

22 57.0 Clerical
23 50.5
24 44.5
25 38.5
26 33.5
27 30.5
28 28.5
29 26.5
30 23.5
31
32

 

Source: Trong R. Chal,*Ph. D., Professionals in’Chlna: Coanict
and Accommodation. Japan: The New Citizens—Pufillsfiing Company,
1975.

 

53

The Cultural Revolution had criticized the 1950s incentive
system as a purely material reward and bourgeois system. For the
Party, money is a thing which only people of exploiting classes
go after - only those blinded by the love of gain who kowtow to
and worship profit. Therefore, this system ceased and a new incentive
system was adopted. In this system, intellectuals have been promoted
without being paid monetarily. Their contributions are recognized
only by increasing their grade level and by bestowing political
honor. In so doing, in contemporary China, there is a serious inconsistency
between grade and actual wages as is shown in Table VI. Intellectuals
in universities have been honored Just in titles and their actual
income or wage is one to four grades lower than it should be in
comparison with Table V.

In Table VI, the majority of intellectuals at the Shanghai
Institute of Communications have problems of inconsistency between
grade and their actual payment. About 962 out of 1046 lecturers
in that institute have been paid at a level of 1-4 grades lower,
and the percentage of this under-pay is extremely high (92%). Both
full professors and associate professors are also under paid (90%
and 86%).

With lower incomes, most intellectuals in research and development
units are not eligible for bonus payments on the scale received
by those working in industry and in agriculture. Moreover, besides
these factors, middle-aged intellectuals have parents as well as
children to support. Hence their actual income is lower than workers

and peasants, even lower than the national standard in urban area.

54

 

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55

Chinese intellectuals are generally very poor men. They are even
unable to purchase books, to subscribe to newspapers, periodicals
etc. and suffer many privations( the standard of income and expenditures
of urban families for China is provided in Appendix I of the paper.
See Figure I.1.). Under such presures (worrying about living and
supporting a family), it is not surprising that general health
in their group is not good: some statistics show a high mortality
rate among them, more so for elderly intellectuals (Fei Xiaotong,
1983).

Meanwhile, many of these intellectuals are living in overcrowded
quarters. In some families, three generations are packed into one
small room. For instance, a survey of housing conditions of intellectuals
.in Beijing conducted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences showed
that 105 associate researchers (professors) have only one room
to squeeze in with their families: there are 2,788 ordinary research
workers (15) who have only single room: about 3,317 of them do
not even own a room. In this case, they have to share housing together.
In sum, this survey reveals that for Chinese intellectuals as a
whole housing conditions are very poor. They are so overcrowded
that privacy of any sort is impossible in terms of their personal
lives and their work. The average living space for Chinese intellectuals
is 3.7 square meters (People's Baily, November 19, 1983). It is
difficult to imagine how under such conditions they can carry on
their research and work after working hours.

For the majority of Chinese intellectuals, their houshold chores

are very heavy. Table VII, based upon a survey in Zhejang Province

56

of China, demonstrates the time typically spent by the middle-aged
intellectuals. According to this report, middle-aged intellectuals
have to work 4.8% more hours than other non-intellectuals do per

day. Among them, teachers in the universities, high schools and
elementary schools have 11.1% more working hours than manual workers.
Female teachers even work 16.5 hours per day.

Table VII. Time Expenditures of the Middle-Aged Intellectuals
in China ( Zhejiang Province ) 1983.

 

 

 

 

 

- 7* Compared to Teachers Compar-

Category Time Nonintellec- ed to Nonintel-

tuals lectuals

Work E Trans- 4.8% over other 15.4%lover other

portation 9 1/3 hrs. workers workers

Chores or *General 3 hrs:

Household female 3% hrs. --- ---
Cooking 1 hr. & 4 mins. --- ---
Laundry 34 mins. -—- ---
Shopping 26 mins. --- ---

Children Care 11 mins. --- ---

Others 38 mins. --- ---

Sparetime 7General 1 hr. 20% over Other

Stud male, 1 hr.& 11mins workers ---

es & 1 5 hrs. 29.1%‘Iess
Entertainment than workers ---

 

Source: Table is based on a " Survey Report On Time Spending
of the Middle-Aged Intellectuals " in Guangming Ribao ( En-
lightenment Daily ), November 17, 1983.

 

An examination of Table VII, reveals that when workers have
finished their regular work and rest, intellectuals have to use
their spare time to do research or study. This extra work time
is estimated to be about one hour, 20% more than workers do. Therefore,

intellectuals can only spend half an hour for entertainment which

57

is 39% less than workers have. The findings of this report suggest
that China‘s intellectuals can not bring their initiative into

full play. Social functions or roles can not be adequately performed
because of obstruction and interference, anxiety and worry about
their families well-being. These conditions restrict the productivity
and creativity of China's intellectuals.

Research and development (ROD) expenditures planned by the
government should be considered simultaneously with living conditions.
I have attempted to make use of a breakdown of the ROD budget for
the year of 1973 by major categories in Table VIII. The estimates
used here can be challenged on many counts, but may still be useful
in the absence of official data from China_(The estimates made
here do not include the humanistic and social sciences. The reason
is twofold: 1) The humanities receive very limited funds compared
with the other major categories: 2) Most social science research
is carried out as investigations under the direct control of Party
organs, which sets social sciences aside from all other RED activities.).
Table VIII shows that basic research receives as of the total RGD
budget and, this figure is possibly on the high side. Across sectors,
there is a total ROD budget of 2.48 billion yuan in 1973, which
approximately equals 3 1.25 billion 0.8.. This is roughly 0.6%
of the gross national product of China in 1973, which would indicate
that the estimated budget is a close approximation, and supports
the general assumption that the relative level of ROD expenditure

in China is generally on the high side.

58

Table VIII. Breakdown of R&D Expenditures by Major Categories
( 1973 Estimate )

 

 

 

 

Man ower EXpenditure
Thousands ercentage Billion! Percenta e
I II I II I

Basic Research 21.3 21.3 2 4 .883 .083 3 4
Agriculture & Natural
Resources Excluding 293 102 45 17 .601 .311 24 14
Energy
Medicine & Public Health 102 102 12 17 .311 .311 13 14
Defese 100 100 11 17 .517 .517 21 24
Manufacturing, energy,
& Transportation 261 261 30 45 .970 .970 39 44
TStaI‘ 879 586 100 100* 2.48 2.19* 100 100

 

Sgurce: Technology and Science in the P.R. China. Jon Sigurdeon,
1 81.
* I, mass scientific network in agriculture included.
** II, mass scientific network in agriculture excluded.
1: Chinese currency ( unit: yuan ).

But as the author Jon Sigurdson in his book Technology and

 

Science in the People's Republic of China pointed out: "... with

the evidence indicating that this sector ROD of the society was

badly neglected or interfered with for a number of years, it appears
that earlier estimated ROD figures are higher than what they actually
were." I would agree with this argument that it is true that in

1973 during the Cultural Revolution, many ROD projects were not
fulfilled and this statement has been acknowledged by the Government
(Fan Yi's report in 1977).

Due to unfavorable governmental policies towards intellectuals
and the anti-intellectual trend during the Cultural Revolution
compared to the advanced industrial countries in science and technology,
China is now lagging 15 to 20 years behind in many branches and
still more in some others. Table 1.1. in Appendix II illustrates

the scientific and technological gap between China and the developed

59

countries. The data truely mirror the disastrous effect of anti-
intellectualism on science and technology and on the national economy

and its modernization. Backwardness continues.

Footnotes
(12) ”Two Hundred" policy has been heavily used by the Chinese
publications, which is an abbreviated expression of the famous
policy of "Letting a hundred flowers bloom, letting a hundred schools
of thought contend."
(13) According to the Chinese official English publication

- China Daily (January 8, 1995), one American dollar roughly equals

 

2.30 Chinese yuan (31-2.BO yuan).

(14) In China, salaries of public employees are ranked (1950)
from Grade 1 to 32 according to an individual's education, training,
actual work experience and importantly, how long one has participated
in the Chinese revolution or worked in the socialist system. For
example, a person who joined the Red Army in 19303 and after the
liberation will obtain more salary than a person who joined the
revolution in 1940s.‘Managers' grade in Table V and their payment
more or less both depend on the factors I mentioned above, and
moreover, are co-related with the size of organizations wherein
the managers work.

(15) Ordinary research workers refer to those have had college
level of education and work at a research institue without the
title of researcher or associate researcher, but are categorized

as intellectuals.

6C)

VI. Changes in Policies and FUture Tendencies

Since the end of the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution
for Chinese intellectuals, government policies towards intellectuals
have undergone great changes. Measures are being taken by the Party
and government to correct some past errors in the treatment of
intellectuals and some frame-ups and false charges imposed on intellectuals
have been redressed. The new policies can be seen in Fang Yi's
(16) report at the National Science Conference on March 18, 1978.
These policies and their implementation include:

1) Promoting competent Party and non-Party intellectuals to
leading positions. It is imperative that Party leaders are selected
and elected from and among people who have a good understanding
of the Party's policies and are eager to promote science. Experts
or near-experts must be appointed to leading professional positions.
Recently, the Chinese government further requires peOple in leading
positions to have at least a college level of education or its
equivalent. Intellectualization of professional leaders is now
an important criterion for scientific agencies, research institutes
and social organizations. Many scientists, engineers and professors
have been promoted to leading posts in factories and universities
including colleges.

2) Upholding the policy of "letting a hundred schools of thought
contend." Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, the government

reinstated and encouraged free contention among different schools

61

of thought, especially within science. With regard to academic

problems, peOple should have both freedom for criticism and freedom

for refuting criticism. The government and leaders should foster

the attitude of upholding truth and correcting mistakes, strictly
prohibiting the practice of affixing political labels indiscriminately.
Thus, intellectuals who were wrongly designated as bourgeois intellectuals
have been rehabilitated and reassigned work commensurate with their
knowledge and professional identity.

3) With the end of the situation in which laymen led professionals,
the government has reassigned work to intellectuals whose previous
work during the Cultural Revolution was not related to their own
field. In the past three years (1978-1980), 160,000 such intellectuals
were given new jobs related to their skills and knowledge.

4) Restoring and perfecting the system of conferring titles
on intellectuals in universities, colleges and in research institutes.
On February 12, 1980, the standing committee of the National People's
Congress endorsed regulations for awarding academic degrees at '
the doctoral, masters and bachelors level. Between 1981 and 1983,
altogether 29 people were awarded doctor's degrees, and 18,143
people received master's degrees (Beijing Review, No. 20, May 14,
1984).

5) Honoring and citing intellectuals who have made outstanding
contributions, as is done in the case of workers and peasants.

In April 1979, a special committee for the examination of new inventions
was set up by the State Commission for Science and Technology.

Its aim is to encourage initiative and creativity among Chinese

62

intellectuals. Monetary prizes and medals are awarded to individual
intellectuals and units for major original inventions which meet
world standards.

6) Increasing international academic exchanges and learning
advanced science and technology from other countries. The government
has strengthened scientific and technological co-operation and
academic exchanges with other countries. It also encourages keeping
abreast of the results, trends, policies and measures of scientific
and technological research as well experience in organization management
in other countries. In the past six years (1978-1984), China has
spent 290 million yan ($116 million) to sent 26,000 students to
study in more than 60 countries. In addition, 7,000 students have
‘gone abroad at their own expense. The number sent abroad will be
increased to 4,000 in 1985 from the present 3,000, according to
State Councilor Zhang Jinfu's announcement( "China Will Send More
Students Overseas" in China Daily, December 30, 1984.).

7) Increasing the quality of life of intellectuals. Owing to
the fact that China's economy was seriously sabotaged before, many
urgent problems cry out for solution and they can not be solved
at once. However, poor living working conditions have received
the attention of the government and the public. In 1981, in an
attempt to solve these problems, nearly 12 million primary and
middle school teachers received a salary raise. The government
also gives priority to intellectuals for improving their living
conditions, e.g. in housing.

8) Reducing the amount of time intellectuals spend in political

63

meetings. At least five-sixths of weekly work hours had to be "guaranteed
to intellectuals to engage in their professional work." The emphasis

on the participation in political activities has been shifted to

the strong involvement in scientific research and professional

work, and along with this shift, the evaluation criterion no longer
examines the political reliability but the capability of intellectuals

to solve problems in research, teaching and applied fields.

In summary, compared with the Cultural Revolution, governmental
policies towards intellectuals for the time being are more favorable.
The government and the Chinese people have gradually realized that
without the efforts, co-operation and service of intellectuals
China's modernization could not be accomplished. The fulfillment
of this task depends very much on the mobilization of intellectuals
and a supportive atmosphere which gives esteem to the scientific
and knowledge contributions of intellectuals and themselves. Such
positive policies will secure a co-operation of intellectuals with
the government. This assumption can be seen by examining the following
indicators:

Within very short period of time, after the Cultural Revolution,
intellectuals in China have made very significant achievements.

Figure III clearly shows that in 1983, a total of 15.51 billion
of national and provincial newspapers, 1.77 billion magazines of
all kinds and 5.8 billion books and pictures were published. In
1983, 35,700 books of all kinds were published, an increase of
1.4 times as compared to 1978: 3,415 kinds of magazines -— 2.7

times over 1978: 340 kinds of newspapers - 5 times over 1978.

64

Figure III. Publications in the P.R. China

 

 

 

 

15.51

Books Published 5‘80 Magazines Newspapers

     
   

(Billions volumes)

Published published

(Billions volumes)

12.78

    

(Billions copies)

 

 

 

1992 1957 1995 1978 1983 1952 1957 1965 1976 1983 1952 1957 1985 1978 1983

 

 

 

Source: Data were issued on April 29, by the State Statisti-
cal Bureau of China. Beijing Review. Vol. 27 No. 35
August 27, 1984. _ ' '

Figure IV provides school enrollment figures and the number
graduates from colleges and universities. From 1978 until 1983,
both school enrollment and higher education graduates have reachied
their highest point since 1949.

All these factors have reflected the changes in policies of
favoring intellectuals which are positive and encouraging for the
programs aimed at China's modernization. This tendency will continue
With the support of intellectuals. The process of implementing
these policies is still ongoing. For the government per as, this
tendency can be seen in the governmental ROD expenditures planned
for 1981-1985, the sixth Five-Year Plan which is provided in Appendix

II, Table I.2. of this study.

65

Figure IV. School Enrollment and Graduates of Higher Educa—
tlon in the People's Republic of China

Universities, colleges

  

Secondary Technical schools I (thOUSONdSl
230 1949 - '
1957 - '
1965
1978 ‘ ‘-
1983 ‘

   
   

120

  
 

 
  
 

- 44o
- 1. . 670
-- -. ~ 860

1.210

     

780

Graduates of secondary technical schools

University and college graduates

 
   

Total from 1949-83: Total from 1949-83:
4,1 10,000. - 7,220,000

 

 

  

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

79
Average annual in thousands

Source: Figure is adopted Horn Beijing ReVlew.

35, August 27, 1984.

Vol. 27, W.

Footnotes

(16) Fang ‘11, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee
of the Chinese Communist Party of China, Vice—Premier of the State

Council and concurrently Minister in charge of the State Scientific
and Technological Commission.

66

VII. Concluding Remarks

This descriptive study and historical comparison has shown
that the performance of social roles by Chinese intellectuals,
their productivity, creativity and the process of professionalization
including their quality of life have been determined and affected
by several external factors of Chinese society, namely, social,
political and economic factors which have been specified as the
Chinese government policies and attitudes towards intellectuals.

The difficulties confronting Chinese society in mobilizing intellectuals
is rooted not only in conditions present during the Cultural Revolution,
but are basically derived from a structural problem existing in

China since 1949.

First of all, since the founding of the People's Republic of
China, there has been an inadequate institutionalization of intellectuals
and of their productive activities, and relatedly an inadequate
system of incentives for giving intellectuals prestige.

Secondly, based on the biased estimation of the class characteristics
of Chinese intellectuals, government policies towards intellectuals
have been always discriminatory and prejudicial. Gradually, an
ideology and a social atmosphere of anti-intellectualism have taken
form over several decades.

Thirdly, under the large-scale bureaucratic state machine,

Chinese intellectuals are so hemmed in by political restrictions

and so burdened with political requirements that there is little

67

room for initiative to creatively pursue their professional career.

As a direct result of this system, for the past three decades,
Chinese intellectuals have suffered from being distrusted, humiliated
and persecuted by the Party and government through the so—called
process of "thought reform." The poor quality of life, discouragement
of professional development and depreciation of scientific knowledge
have led to lower productivity and poor creativity by Chinese intellectuals
arresting scientific and technological development as well as economic
development in Chinese society.

There have been large scale changes in policies towards intellectuals
since the ending of the Cultural Revolution. The practical needs
requiring the co-operation of intellectuals for the purpose of
modernizing Chinese society have generated general improvements
in the quality of professional life and the encouragement of professional
development. But democracy and autonomy or freedom for intellectual
activities still need further integration into the Chinese system
to allow intellectuals to fully play their social roles and to
utilize their knowledge and talents.

There are several issues raised by this thesis which serve
as suggestions for future research. This study has mostly surveyed
Chinese intellectuals in the fields of science and technology in
conjunction with the governmnet emphasis on modernizing Chinese
society by adapting advanced science and technology from industrialized
countries. This emphasis in the long run may give rise to a favoring

of Chinese intellectuals in the natural sciences, engineering,

68

and related technological fields over intellectuals in the humanities
and the social sciences. Future studies on the Chinese intelligentsia
should investigate the impact of the process of Chinese modernization
on different areas of science and other intellectual areas, that
is to say, will natural science, technology, engineering, social
science, and humanities be paid equal attention by Chinese society
in its development plans? This question also is directly related
to what models of scientific development will be followed in China
-— a Western model in which the orientation and development of
sciences are freely determined and accelerated by intellectuals
with a certain degree of government support, a purely Chinese model
that the direction and development of sciences are centrally planned
and fully controlled by government and the Party, or some synthesis
of both Chinese and western models?

This study also reveals that recently, foreign trained intellectuals
are favored by society within the scientific community of China.
Will this strucutral change in the Chinese intellectual communities
very soon lead to a conflict in terms of the way of thinking and
social status between intellectuals who are trained abroad and
intellectuals who are educated in China? Further differences and
conflict in the intellectual community is likely to emerge between
the old nonprofessional cadres and Chinese intellectuals. These
cadres were in positions of power and leadership over the working
and peasant classes. That power and leadership is now being challenged
by the Chinese intellectuals who are beginning to take over decision-

making positions in a whole range of Chinese bureaucracies. A clash

69

appears inevitable between these two contending parties. The critical
question here is what consequences these developments will have
on both Chinese intellectuals and the intellectual community.
Furthermore, from this study, we are aware that Chinese intellectuals
are seen as a critical manpower factor in catching up with advanced
industrial societies. As a result, Chinese intellectuals are beginning
to freely and actively to develop their intellectual interests,
their professional identities and their creativity as state control
is lossened. Does this mean that a new type of social structure
brought about by Chinese modernization is emerging and within it
will different "schools of thought" be encouraged?

Finally, in the near future, will Chinese intellectuals still
be a social stratum as defined now or a "new class" which will
be shaped by the process of modernization and by the more important
social roles they assume in orienting and guiding the development
of Chinese society rather than being passive audiences and targets
of state policies. The roles assumed by Chinese intellectuals and
the manner in which they are performed will shape and determine
the future of the Chinese intellectual community.

These new and exciting areas of future research chart an agenda
for sociologists from around the world, especially Chinese sociologists.
Ideally, this research agenda should be studied directly in China
and in the near future from methodological point of view, it may
be possible to use field and survey methods to supplement studies
which have until now depended upon spotty documentary and historical

data sources.

70

Appendix I. Figure I. 1.
( Selected Chinese Statistics )

Income and Expenditures of Urban Families
(Average Annual Per Capita)
Income (yuan) Persons supported by every wage-earner

An increase of 3.29 in 1957
43% over 1978 2.06 in 1978
excluding price rise ‘ 1.7] in 1983

Breakdown of expenditures (95)

 

         

  

 

 

, 1978
r _W
l ; 55523::

. * E m 1:]
.1957 1973 1982 1983 Food ‘ Clothing .fgl‘vm om... ‘ .
Source: Figure was issued on April 29, 1984, by the State sta-

tistical Bureau. Beijing Review. Vol. 27, No. 35. August 27,
1984.

 

 

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77