ABSTRACT
As they were gradually drawn to the Communist ideology, how did the Chinese radicals define their historical mission in terms of the course that China should take? How did they explain their commitments to their mission? How did their perception of the status quo contribute to their determination to change the Chinese society and nation? To understand the Communist intellectuals’ elitist self-construction in relation to the peasantry from the functional perspective, I find it important to reflect on these questions. An examination of these issues is essential for an analysis of revolutionary intellectuals’ self-narratives. By defining their historical mission, by explaining their commitments, and by expounding on their attitude toward the status quo, radical intellectuals established themselves as historical agents who, because of their special knowledge about how reality should be changed and about where China should go, were entitled to guide China’s transformation. In addition, their understanding of their historical mission, the ways in which they explained their commitments, and their response to the reality that, in their view, needed fundamental re-shaping—all this supplied them with the principles, ideas and criteria to judge their own and the peasantry’s capacity for change.
