History Midterm project

During 1930-1950, it was the peak of the Sino-Soviet relationship; the good relationship
between the Chinese Communist Party and Unit of Soviet Socialist Republics brought a lot
of benefits to China. Education, in particular, is one of the things that benefited the most.
Soviet built up an education system for China that still affects Chinese society. The
education support Soviet offered has a significant effect on Chinese society and the people
at that time. It gave a better education to people, it created a tendency for people in China
to major in science subjects, and it influenced people's mind in both positive and negative
ways. Chinese, even now, are still affected by the support Soviet offered 50-60 years
before.

When the Soviet Union came to China to offer help, one of the things they brought is a
better education system. The support Soviet Union offered is vast, "the Soviet government
sent 700 experts in 1950-57 to teach in Chinese universities and technical institutes ......
and helped build 496 laboratories, 192 research libraries.​1​" With all the laboratories and
libraries, the quality of high education improved to match the standard of the Soviet Union.
These numbers show how much the Soviet government values the relationship. With all
these things they offered, they also got the right to controlled the process of education
reform. They replaced the old classic education system and turned it into a new, more
efficient system. By doing that, China became more similar to Soviet, therefore, Soviet
enlarge its own influence around the world."Soviet influence was felt on all levels of
education. Soviet teaching methods, such as pedagogical seminars and the five-point
grading system were widely adopted."​2​One of the significant examples of "Soviet
influence was felt on all levels of education." is that the new system enables women to go
to school As my interviewee mentioned, "this change enables his mother to go to school
and gives his father an opportunity to study in college."​3​ The chance for females to go to
school not only gives females knowledge, but also help Chinese society to have more
gender equality. The growth of female right, at the same time, also enable more female to
get a better education. Beside high education, Soviet's support also made some progress in
the field of basic education, "that literacy rates have risen from 20% in 1949 to 68% in
1982"​4​. 48% increase for China represent thousand millions of people learned how to read
and write. Although this data may not be very accurate, the quality of literacy is
questionable. It's still a great progress. This great progress can't be achieved without a
modern, efficient education system. Education is a huge factor in people's lives; a good
education means a bigger chance to get a better job and a higher social status. Since the
tuition is a smaller problem, most parents are willing to send their child to school because
in people's idea it's such an honor to have a college student in the family. The motivation
of study in college is not only about to get a better job but also honor the family. So as long
as the family can afford the tuition, even that means they have to take extra work time,
parents do their best to send their children to school. This phenomenon directly creates lots
of people who have the professional skill in their fields that can help the development of
the country. Although the popular opinion at that time is female shouldn't go to school, by
the support of the government, lots of females still went to the female school. So the lives
of females also influenced by the Soviet. What's more, because the government requires
students to teach illiterate people, especially soldiers and factory worker, how to read and
write as a volunteer activity. The influence Soviet brings spread out because of that. Even
the people who can't afford tuition or don't have academic pursue get some degree of
education. So by both direct and indirect ways, Soviet's support makes people got a better
education.

The old Chinese education system that has existed for 1000 years is an education system
that only focuses on humanities subjects. History, Literature, and Philosophy is the only
subject that will be taught at school before the nineteenth century. Science subjects, on the
other hand, were considered useless. Math, physics, and chemistry were considered as
tricks. Just like a Chinese phrase said" Wan Ban Jie Xia Pin Wei You Du Shu Gao."​5
which means study (in humanities subjects in particular) is the highest priority in people's
life. One of the biggest reason for that is because of the close connection between
education and politic. However, for Soviet Unit, it's quite different. A basic course request
for a 12 years old Soviet kid would be "Russian language and literature, foreign language,
mathematics, science, and ancient history"​6​ The course request in Soviet is exactly the
same we have in school today, these courses basic cover the knowledge one needs to leave
in a modern society. These courses are suitable for the modern world and are helpful for
the development of the country. However, Teachers in China at that time were still only
teaching the books that written in hundreds or even thousands year before. The Soviet Unit
had more experience in science subjects compare to China. As a result, The Chinese
government and society at that time are urgently needed to make up this lack of experience
in order to develop the country and defense the foreign investigation. According to the
interview, “most of the professors send by Soviet are major in sciences subjects .”​7​ Besides
that, the Soviet also provide a lot of resources in science subjects.

Soviet scholars propounded their theory in science, economic, and other fields of study.
Many a biologist has to discard Mendelism and Darwinism and study the theory of
Michurin and Lysenko. There was a great rush to translate Russian books. It was a reported
in 1957 that 12400 Russian books had been translated and over 12 million copies printed
for a wide distribution.​8

Soviet's support made students change their major from humanities subjects to science
subjects because Soviet's support gave students an opportunity to study in science subjects
which don't exist before. These subjects mean more resources and support from the school,
more job opportunity, and a higher salary. Science subjects bring much more benefit than
humanities subjects. At the same time, both the Chinese Government and Soviet were
encouraging students to study these subjects. There was a massive gap in the scientific
field between the Western countries and China at that time, and the Chinese government is
trying to make up this gap by encouraging youth to study in science subjects. So even the
traditional social expectation to youth is to study humanities subjects and later get involved
in politic. A considerable amount of them, by the influence of Soviet, end up studying in
science subjects. Interviewee's father, as an example, majored engineering in college and
became an engineer after he graduated. A field one's focus on more or less changes the
direction of one's life. When the support of Soviet affected people to change their major, it
changed their career, their life at the same time.

Learning other languages is a meaningful thing, not only because it gives you the ability to
communicate with more people, gives you more opportunity, but also it changes the way
you think, gives you a boarder mind, and build a connection between you and other
culture. Because of the Soviet's professors that send to China mostly only speak Russian,
"Russian replaced English as the most important foreign language, and many an English
teacher had to study Russian in a hurry in order to discharge his new duties as a foreign
language teacher."​9​ The meaning of that is at that time the influence Soviet brought
overpowered the influence of other western countries, and became the primary subject
China collaborate with. Besides that, the Soviet's idea of that "education must serve
proletarian politics" were widely accepted. Students were asked to study Marxism, read
books wrote by Marx, Engels, Lenin. According to the interview " In college, besides
normal class, all students need to understand Marxism and the news around the world."​10
By using foreign language during teaching and teaching Marxism, education offered by
Soviet changed people's mind in both positive and negative way. The Chinese character is
hieroglyphic; unlike most of the language in the world, it doesn't have letters to compose
words. Using Russian to teach gives the student who is good at Russia a creative mind and
a better understanding of Russian culture. By using their language, students can more
easily follow the thought process of their professors or the author of their textbook. It also
helps some students to become diplomats. Interviewee's uncle, as an example, served as a
translator in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But for those who are not that good at
Russian, study becomes extra hard. For those who have a hard time to understand what the
teacher is saying, to get the academic achievement is impossible. As for the study of
Marxism, it helps students to get to know logic and philosophy. Marxism is based on
Empirical rather than ideology. It's base on observation and experience, which is widely
used in scientific research and study. However, because of the strong political connection
between Marxism and the CCP, the study of Marxism ends up became a form of
propaganda. The course starts to focus more on Stalin and Mao instead of Marx, their
speech and books replaced the books written by Marx become the subject the class mainly
study on. The class is no longer about logical thinking and philosophy but fill with
propaganda and patriotism. As the interviewee said, "In a way, this kind of class promotes
the cultural revolution."​11​ In general, the changing of people's mind, whether it's teaching
people how to do logic thinking and giving people a boarder mind or using propaganda to
brainwash people, changes the decisions they make, they things they believe. The way one
thinks is much more important than the education one get, or one's major in college
because the way one thinks is related to every single moment in life.

All in all, Although the education support offered by Soviet didn't give an immediate
change to people's life. However, due to the more and more jobs require education
background, and also people who have same background tend to gather. Day by day,
through education, this historical event changes the people's job preference, their social
life, their marriages, and their offspring. The effect of the Soviet's education support makes
add up and eventually made a huge difference in people's lives
1. Chen, Theodore. "International Aspects of Education in Communist China." The Phi
Delta Kappan 51, no. 5 (1970): 251-55. ​http://www.jstor.org/stable/20372622​.
2. Chen, Theodore. "International Aspects of Education in Communist China." The Phi
Delta Kappan 51, no. 5 (1970): 251-55. ​http://www.jstor.org/stable/20372622​.
3. Zheng, HUA. Telephone interview by the author. Hamden, CT USA. December 2, 2018.
4. ​owett, A. John. "Patterns of Literacy in the People's Republic of China." GeoJournal
18, no. 4 (1989): 417-27. ​http://www.jstor.org/stable/41144462​.
5. ​Yang, James Z., and William C. Frick. "Will the Leadership of Chinese Education
Follow the Footsteps of American Education? A Brief Historical and Socio-Political
Analysis." Journal of Thought 44, no. 3-4 (2009): 23-48.
doi:10.2307/jthought.44.3-4.23
6. ​Turkevich, Ludmilla B. "Soviet Education." The Modern Language Journal 44, no. 3
(1960): 113-17. doi:10.2307/319790.
7. Zheng, HUA. Telephone interview by the author. Hamden, CT USA. December 2, 2018.
8. ​Chen, Theodore. "International Aspects of Education in Communist China." The Phi
Delta Kappan 51, no. 5 (1970): 251-55. ​http://www.jstor.org/stable/20372622​ .
9. Chen, Theodore. "International Aspects of Education in Communist China." The Phi
Delta Kappan 51, no. 5 (1970): 251-55. ​http://www.jstor.org/stable/20372622​.
10. Jia Baolan. Telephone interview by the author. Second interview Hamden, CT USA.
December 9, 2018.
11. Zheng, HUA. Telephone interview by the author. Hamden, CT USA. December 2, 2018.