Turning a Chinese Kid Red: kindergartens in the early People's Republic

Abstract

To win the hearts and minds of the Chinese people, Chinese Communist leaders launched a series of educational reforms to instill new socialist ideas and nationalistic fervor in kindergarteners immediately after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Under the strong influence of Soviet advisers and through a number of methods (games, singing, storytelling, site visits), Chinese kindergarteners were taught the nobility of labor, the sacrifice of soldiers, the grandeur of Tiananmen Square, the wise leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong, and the evilness of enemies. However, contrary to the conventional view, this article argues that Chinese education officials and kindergarten teachers never blindly followed Soviet educational models. They appropriated Moscow's techniques to suit their domestic needs, which included promoting nationalist feelings among children to consolidate the Chinese Communist Party's legitimacy and power. Ultimately, Chinese kindergarteners were turned into Party loyalists, not admirers of a foreign socialist model. Although the Party encountered difficulties in recruiting reliable teachers to implement its policies, it was able to impose nearly total control from above over the political content of kindergarten education. Under the one-party system, Chinese children were only taught what the Communist leaders wanted them to learn.