The article introduces the ideological background of the new Confucian revival, which appeared in the P.R. China during the last two decades. Through the analysis of classical Confucianism and through the presentation of essential differences between Confucianism as a socio-ethical philosophy, which is based upon communitarian principles on the one hand, and Confucianism in the function of the official state doctrine on the other, the author clearly shows that the Confucian revival in the P.R. China is to a high degree ideologically conditioned. The article introduces two different currents within the so-called Modern Confucianism, which represents the theoretical background of this revival that has been shaped in China at the threshold of the 20th century. Whereas this stream of thought has been silenced in China already in the early 1950s, its representatives in Hong Kong and Taiwan have been further developing and upgrading the philosophical bases of this system, which is based upon various attempts to synthesize Western and traditional Chinese ideas. Only during the last two decades we could also witness a revitalization of this philosophy in the P.R. China. This revitalization, however, rests upon different foundations.
