Author ｜
Kwok wai Hui, Guangxin Fan
Abstract ｜
In 2005, at the forum in honor of his retirement, Prof. Hao Chang (1936- 2022) pointed out that the concept of geming 革命 (revolution) in China had different meanings and could be divided into three categories: (1) xiao geming 小革命or tangwu geming 湯武革命which takes the Confucian concept of tianmin 天命as the starting point and recognizes the justice of replacing one dynasty with another; (2) zhong geming 中革命 (political revolution) which underscores the changing of political system; (3) da geming 大革命 (great revolution) which emphasizes on using political means to thoroughly transform social, cultural and other aspects of human life after political revolution. One of the most significant inspirations that we take from Prof. Chang’s speech is taking tangwu geming as the starting point in order to understand the development of the concept of revolution in China. Tangwu geming not only meant overthrowing tyrants with violence, but also closely related to the core of traditional Confucian political philosophy. However, the concept of tangwu geming failed to transform itself into the concept of modern revolution before 1895. This article uses Youwei Kang’s doctrine of tianfu renquan 天賦人權 as an example to show how the critical transformation took place after 1895. Prof. Chang’s other works point out that the combination of the tradition Chinse concepts renji yishi 人極意識 and tianren heyi 天人合一 with Western political theories generated the concept of modern revolution in China, including that of great revolution. This article uses the opera reform after 1949 as a case study to examine how the Communist Party of China utilized its political power to implement a thorough social and cultural revolution. By studying the opera reform, the article reveals that how the Communists redefined Chinese culture and reshaped the subjectivity of the people.
keywords ｜
Hao Chang, revolution, tianfu renquan, opera reform