Liang Shuming

Independent activity 1893–1988 ○ Died

New Confucian rural reconstructionist and Democratic League co-founder, attacked by Mao in 1953 for defending the peasants

Born in Beijing and educated in modern schools, he was recruited by Cai Yuanpei to teach philosophy at Peking University in 1917, where his Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies opened the way for modern New Confucianism. Opposed to transplanting Western institutions wholesale, he urged change starting from the grass roots, founding the Shandong Rural Reconstruction Institute, and helped found the China Democratic League. He criticised Marxist class theory, arguing that Chinese rural society could not be cleanly divided along class lines. After the war against Japan he mediated between the Nationalists and Communists, and at the Central People’s Government Council in September 1953 he said the peasants were “down in the ninth hell” amid industrialisation, drawing a long attack from Mao. He never admitted error in later campaigns and died in 1988.

Also known as: Liang Shu-ming · Liang Sou-ming