清官现象新析——以历史上的江苏清官为例

作为历史上真实的客观存在,清官是历代统治阶级官僚队伍中"以廉为本"的一个群体。他们或志行修洁,或执法持平,或搏击豪强,或为民请命。清官有其存在的经济、政治和思想基础,其代有人出绝对不是偶然的社会现象。对清官的历史作用应该遵循马克思主义的分析方法,实事求是地进行一分为二的科学评价,既要看到历代清官对相应历史时期的政治、经济和思想文化都或多或少地有所改善,在客观上顺应了历史发展的方向,因而代表了从孔夫子到孙中山这一漫长历史时期内中国历代统治阶级内部要求进步的一部分人物,又要看到清官毕竟是封建官吏,他们不可能反对他们所维护的剥削制度,而且人数少得可怜,又多为地方官吏,只能在局部区域内在个别政策上作一些有利于民众的调整,更何况清官的行动从来没有越出封建秩序所许可的范围一步,其所作所为从本质上讲仍然是为了维护与巩固统治阶级的国家政权。

New Analysis of the Phenomenon of Clean Officials---A Case Study of Clean Officials in Jiangsu Province in History

As a real fact existing in history, clean officials always exist as a group that sticks to the principle of integrity among the ruling bureaucratic ranks throughout the history. They have decent cultivation, enforce law justly, speak for the interests of civilians, or fearlessly fight against corruption. The economical, political and philosophical environment results in the constant appearance of clean officials and this phenomenon doesn＇t appear by coincidence. To evaluate the phenomenon of clean officials, we must follow the Marxist theory and objectively analyze the positive and negative sides. On one hand, those clean officials did make some contribution to the economy, politics and culture in their times. Objectively, they＇ve conformed to the historical development direction. On the other hand, during the long history from Confucius to Sun Yat-sen, there are a small number of clean officials with a positive outlook to fight for a social progress. Most of them were local officials who could only make some adjustment beneficial for the mass in some specific policies. What＇s more, they had never surpassed the range permitted by the feudal order and their behaviors in nature were to strengthen and safeguard the state power of the ruling class.