Confucius Lives

On second thought, he's O.K.

The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it.

--Confucius

For the 900 million people of China, few of Mao Tse-tung's actions proved more inscrutable than the ferocious campaign that the Chairman conducted against Confucius, the nation's exponent of moderation and ethical values. Schoolchildren were taught to denounce the philosopher, while their elders were obliged to chant imprecations against him in public demonstrations. Posters sprang up around the country portraying Confucius as a rapacious villain. One widely circulated comic strip showed a leering Confucius watching slaves being massacred. Red Guards stormed into the village of Chu Fu, where he was born 2,500 years ago, and destroyed the shrine erected in his honor. The People's Daily exulted: "Confucianism is dead once and for all." A typical broadcast declared: "Although Confucius is dead, his corpse continues to emit its stench even today. Its poison is deep and its influence extensive." That was in 1974.

Last week Confucius was well on his way to being restored as one of the fragrant flowers of Chinese culture. The People's Daily announced that the philosopher had been wrongly condemned as a "demon." After all, the party newspaper recalled, Mao had often quoted him, saying that everyone should "learn from Confucius' attitude of inquiring into everything." The Chinese press has also begun stressing that the Chairman shared Confucius' filial piety. In 1959, for example, Mao was said to have visited his parents' graves, "bowed and placed a bundle of pine twigs" on the tomb. Not mentioned in the People's Daily was Mao's remark: "I hated Confucius from the age of eight. There was a Confucian temple in the village and I wanted nothing more than to burn it to the ground."

The switch on Confucius is apparently part of an effort to reverse the destructive effect on China of Mao's hatred for traditional learning and his contempt for intellectuals. Now that the post-Mao regime of Chairman Hua Kuo-feng has begun to reconstitute the nation's ravaged educational system, China's greatest scholar and thinker may yet be fully rehabilitated. As Confucius said: "When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them."

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