On Mao Zedong's Educational Thought of Class Consciousness

In Marxist theory, class consciousness is the symbol of the development of revolutionary class from spontaneous state to conscious state. Mao Zedong's speech at Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art enriches and develops Marxist theory of class consciousness, and forms the basic principles and methods of class consciousness education: 1) affirming the people's historical subjectivity; 2) arousing the people's revolutionary consciousness by exposing the relationship of exploitation; 3) the education of class consciousness serving the revolutionary united front; 4) taking the proletarian consciousness as the standard to overcome the limitation of other revolutionary classes' consciousness; 5) using the rectification movement to maintain the purity of the Communist Party's ideology. At present, the western capitalist countries led by the United States skillfully use the so-called democratic principles to dispel the class consciousness of the working people. Under this background, it is of great practical value to review Mao Zedong's class consciousness education thought.