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The movie, Breaking with Old Ideas, tells the story of Principal Lung Kuo-cheng, the protagonist of the movie, who builds up a Communist Labor College to oppose to the so-called bourgeoisie education and train successors for the proletariat revolution in 1958, nine years after the Liberation. After the college was built up, Lung admits many peasant students who have limited schooling and implements an education style that combines work with study. When he is criticized by his colleagues, he refutes that the guiding principle for running the college follows the Mao Tse-tung thought. In this movie, it is also the letter from Chairman Mao that saves the college from being banned by the superior leader. The movie was screened in 1975, one year before the end of the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution. Presented as the representative of Mao Tse-tung’s education ideal, the movie advocates for equal education opportunities for the poor people and proletariat class struggles, which results in personality cult of the leader who has brought in such changes and the students’ blind belief in proletariat struggle and lack of respect for true knowledge.
The Social and Historical Background
After nine years of socialist construction, Mao believed that China was ready for surpassing the developed countries in economic development and initiated the Great Leap Forward movement. On the other hand, Mao also warned the public of the danger that the landlord class and the bourgeoisie might overthow the proletariat dictatorship and called the mass to suppress the uprising of the former two classes. As a result, many people were scared to be classified as the “landlords” or the “bourgeoisie.” In the cultural and education field, the Second Session of the 8th National People’s Congress in 1958 confirmed the paramountcy of the class struggle (“The Second Session of the 8th National People Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (May 5-23, 1958)”). The training of students for safeguarding the fruits of the Chinese revolution and the proletariat dictorship was deemed as the correct way for education instead of traning students with independent thinking and true knowledge and skills. The radical ultra-left thought dominated the society. Consolidating the proletariat dictorship, class struggle, and implementing the Mao Tse-tung Thought were seen politically correct until 1976. In 1975, Deng Xiaoping was appointed by Chairman Mao to preside the CCP works (“Deng Xiaoping Began to Host the Routine Works for the Party Central Committee on February 1, 1975”). Deng’s overall rectification was seen as “the Right Deviation and the Tendency to Reserve Correct Verdicts” by Mao who could not tolerate the denial of his proposals in the Cultural Revolution and criticize Deng for his reorganization. Breaking with Old Ideas could be regarded as an effort to consolidate the authority of Mao’s ideas in education and deny Deng’s efforts to correct the wrong doings in the Cultural Revolution in the education field. The Communist Labor College led by Principal Lung executed the proletariat education policies under this political and social background. Lung’s education ideas demonstrate clear features of proletariat struggle, egalitarianism, and personality cult.
Proletariat Class Struggle
Instructed by Mao’s educational ideas, Lung opposes to the so-called bourgeoisie education and insists that “education must serve the proletariat politics and must be combined with productive labor” (Breaking with Old Ideas). To execute these ideal, Lung implements a series of policies to approach the education ideas Mao has pointed out. Principal Lung admits students based on their family backgrounds and their identities as laborers. In his mind, children of the poor and lower-middle peasants are the kind and hard-struggling people and welcomed to study in this college. He shows great disapproval for the so-called “bourgeois education” which, in his idea, would result in the students’ refusal to go to the countryside for the countryside construction. Lung is a typical executive of Mao’s education ideas, which could help the CCP to get “intellectuals who would support the regime, and education that would reach and remold the peasant masses” (Fairbank 360). Lung chooses the top of the mountain as the college site. The idea corresponds to Mao’s calling for the intellectuals to go to the countryside to accept the education from the poor and lower-middle peasants, causing great human intellectual losses and environment damage.
Egalitarianism
Advocating for “egalitarianism” is another feature of education in Lung’s period. Lung aims at providing children of poor and lower-middle peasants the chances to receive an education. Therefore, being a former laborer is one of the important standards of college entrance admission. Through Lung’s policy, students of various education backgrounds receive a college education and are isolated from the outside world. Providing equalized education chances for the poor children is one of the priorities of Lung, who never think of the difficulties that the students may encounter in the learning process and the proper way of education. He only cares about whether the education follows Mao’s educational ideas and whether the students have learned from the poor and lower-middle peasants. Under such guiding principles for running the college, how students learn knowledge and what achievement they can make in the academics are secondary issues. Many efforts have been put in the form of education instead of the content of it. Deputy Chao of the college has concluded it correctly that students under such an education are near-sighted and short of true skill and genuine knowledge. In his efforts to reduce the privileges of the elitists and the intellectuals of the old times, Mao advocated for egalitarianism which had been permeated to every aspect of the social life in that period, including education (Leeds para.4). Education is important, but it should be provided following the regulations of it, or education will be void.
Personality Cult
Lung Kuo-cheng, the protagonist of the movie, is molded to be the executive of the Mao Tsetung Thought, Mao’s idea of education, the spokesman for proletariats, and the backbone of the students from poor and lower-middle peasant families, which demonstrates a strong flavor of a personality cult. Whenever and wherever there is a problem, Lung can solve it: Lung provides education opportunities for poor children, persuades dropouts to go back to college, saves Li Chin-feng, the former model worker from being banished from the college, and successfully changes Dean’s thought on education. The popularity Lung gains among his students are similar to the prestige Mao has on the Chinese people. The personality cult has reached the point that everything Lung says and does is correct and represents Mao’s education ideas. Students under such influence would care less about what the books say but what the Principal says. Zealous and blind worship of the idol would definitely cause great trouble and even “severe crisis or social disturbance” (Lu and Soboleva 24).
General Assessment on Education in This Period
What is good education? In his inaugural speech, the former president of Tsinghua University, Mr. Mei Yiqi says, a great university resides its greatness in having top scholars, not top buildings (“The Speeches Influencing the Tsinghua Students: The Inaugural Speech by President Mei Yiqi” para. 1). However, in this movie, it is advocated that the criteria to judge a good university are whether it takes the proletariat road and “an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat” (Breaking with Old Ideas). In this movie, political correctness and conversion to the belief in proletariat dictatorship emerge as the strongest issue while the objective education regulations and the knowledge and skills as well as the capability for independent thinking emerge as the weakest issue. In a period taking class struggles as the leading principle, what could the students become after graduating from a college which is an instrument for class struggle? An instrument to fight for the class struggle too?
In this movie, I learn how dangerous it can be when personality cult is the dominant theme of society. Everything the figure of the personality cult says or does becomes the absolute truth and allows no questioning. The higher the position of the figure, the greater damage he/she can cause. Take this movie as an example. The antagonists, such as Dean Sun and Deputy Chao of the college, they are the experts of education and know very well what should be done to educate the students. However, their ideas are not approved by Lung. In the end, Dean Sun agrees with Lung’s ideas and discards his previous ideas. Lung’s education has trained a group of students who have no respect for knowledge and expertise, defy rules, and the most important of all, take the ultra-left thought. Everything that fails to meet the ultra-left standards in their eyes has to be diminished and wiped out. They could generate great damage to the society.
Conclusion
Breaking with Old Ideas is a movie propagandizing Mao’s education ideas, which advocating for providing education opportunities for children from poor and lower-middle peasants. The education system implemented in the college led by Lung is a total realization of Mao’s education ideal. Lung is successful in conveying the students and the teachers in the college to his political and educational ideal, the strongest point manifested in the movie. However, the success in conversion of the political ideas deprives the students of their ability in independent thinking and trains them to be the instrument for class struggle and the loyal supporters of Mao Tse-tung himself, instead of learning true skills and genuine knowledge from the college.