The early reformers witnessed the serious national crisis in China at that time, cared about current politics and were keen on western learning, and put forward the thinking mode of "changing things" and "using Chinese style and western things".
After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the bourgeois reformists advocated the political reform movement in the face of the crisis that the great powers carved up China.
Bourgeois revolutionaries launched a fierce criticism, launched a debate on revolution and improvement, and deepened the Confucius critical movement in modern times.
After the Revolution of 1911, there appeared a counter-current of respecting Confucius and restoring ancient ways in the ideological field.
The lessons of the failure of the Revolution of 1911 made some bourgeois Democrats realize that the fundamental reason why the bourgeois system was not established was that it did not touch the old ideas and morality.
After the May 4th Movement, the debate about Confucius' evaluation continued. Finally, Mao Zedong made a scientific summary and put forward: "China created splendid ancient culture in the long feudal society. Cleaning up the development process of ancient culture, eliminating its feudal dross and absorbing its democratic essence are necessary conditions for developing national new culture and improving national self-confidence; But we can't accept everything uncritically. We must distinguish all the decadent things of the ancient feudal ruling class from the excellent people's culture in ancient times, that is, something that is somewhat democratic and revolutionary. " "For China's ancient culture, similarly, we neither reject nor blindly follow it, but critically accept it, thus promoting China's new culture." And stressed that "from Confucius to Sun Yat-sen, we should sum up and inherit this precious heritage." This paper expounds the attitude and methods that Marxists should hold in evaluating Confucius.