>>>>> For Week 3: Read Coursepack 2
Week 2, Sept 14: May 4th Era to the Revolution: Intellectuals Ideas vs. Masses and Classes
Readings
1. Chen Duxiu/陈独秀, “Call to Youth.” [youth; the body]
2. Hu Shi/胡适, “The Significance of New Thought.” [Liberalism]
3. Liang Chi-Chao/梁启超, “Review of China’s Progress.”
4. Mao Zedong, “Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan” (1927) in The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party: Documents and Analysis. [Marxism; Maoism]
5. Recommended : Li Dazhao/李大钊, “The Victory of Bolshevism” 6. Recommended : Sun Yat-Sen, “Theory of Knowledge and Action.”
“To Change China….”: this is the desire of seemingly everyone and they are not talking about small stuff—major changes, to the point of saying they are all radical and revolutionary in some sense. Lu Xun and the reformist or radical intellectuals of the 1910s—1980s (90s too?). But how can you change it? Who will change it? Change it into what? Can we say?
A deceptively complex question: What is REVOLUTION ? And more specifically, how do these authors and/or revolutionaries seem to understand it? How do you get one?
1. Not just a new government, or new people in charge —has to be the end of a current system of governance.
2. Not just political but also social—a whole society is called into question and overthrown.
3. For Marxist types at least (“socialist” and/or nationalist ) it also has to be economic. Even for non-communists, poverty and imperialism (exploitation of China, resource extraction, opium war, etc) were a major problem—there had to be a new system in total.
4. Cultural revolution: a very big concern, even the pre-dominant one for Chinese intellectuals and radicals from the 1900s through the …. 1970s? 1940s? At heart is both a critique of traditional culture (“Confucianism” for example) and a desire for renewal in cultural terms. Or what Hu Shih calls “re-evaluation of all values.”
a. What is this thing called “culture”? Culture is a very vague and even frustrating
concept. It is not just about texts or art or creativity. It means “a whole or common way of life” and way of seeing or thinking or understanding the world. Beliefs and values and ideas, but also includes habits or rituals or ‘practices.’ For China of this era, revolution or even reform are centrally about culture in then ideas sense —“the new thought” for example. 1
In short what we have is a profound sense of CULTURAL crisis. Where culture refers to people’s values and habits and beliefs as well as to their character or spirit. So already in the 20s you see a strong desire for some type of cultural revolution or transformation. Not just a political one (who is in charge at the top, the system of government, etc.) but a cultural one. In order to carry out a political or social revolution – to save China from imperialism and its own decay. May 4th people are all social and
cultural critics. Intellectuals practicing criticism or cultural critique of their own society in order to improve if not save it.
1. Cultural Revolution and Chinese “culture”: As if to say: must change how people think, feel, and behave before you change anything else. Or without the former, the latter is fake and doomed (1911 Revolution in the story is a fraud). The story is also a strong statement against the cruelty, immorality and indifference of people towards their fellow human beings.
Problems are so deep that they can’t just be reformed or lightly revised: it’s the whole mentality and national character at stake. Yet LX also shows how even the revolutionaries of the
Republican era (1911) are inept and suffering the same problem—they are superficial rebels or non-heroes. You can’t just change the political system or laws either. You need a cultural revolution. Mao Zedong agreed and argued much the same thing later on; it’s also why he called LX the greatest writer of china’s cultural revolution. So, too, note that the idea for a
1 EXAMPLE of a cultural question/need/problem: the so-called “national character” …
cultural revolution, as well as efforts to produce one, are much older than 1966-1976. And that has to be a long, gradual process; culture cant be created or destroyed overnight, for better and for worse.
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INTELLECTUALS of May4th era.
Chen Duxiu, in 1915 Hu Shi, 1919
Liang Qi-Chao, in 1922
COMPARE AND CONTRAST THIS WITH CCP : Mao Zedong in 1927
CHEN DUXIU (the early, pre-Marxist Chen Duxiu of “New Youth” period): quick recap here:
1879—1942... co-founder of CPP with Li Dazhao, but also Mao and others.... LI Dazhao is equally the co-founder and more the intellectual leader, despite what editors say here.
“Call to Youth”.... [also see Mao essay, p 207 for why the youth is important. ]
… Chinese intellectuals came to believe that the country's political problems were rooted in Chinese traditional culture in general and in Confucianism in particular. The New Youth, a magazine edited by Chen, Hu, and others compared the health of Chinese society to a human body.
EVOLUTIONISM & PROGRESS: But we now know – and many did already back in the West –
that progress is not necessarily a good thing—you can progress into war, destruction, poverty, and so on. Biological/naturalistic basis even to his thought, and to Liang’s. Partly metaphorical but they mean it too.
Chen’s famous list of what youth should do/be:
Again: his main intent to mobilize youth and reform China:
1. To be independent instead of servile 2. To be progressive instead of conservative 3. To be aggressive instead of retiring 4. To be cosmopolitan instead of isolationist 5. To be utilitarian not formalistic
BUT: note how far he pushes this anti-tradition perspective. There is nothing critical of the Western powers or so-called Western culture, way of life etc. Anti-Confucian logic: nothing critical about the Western powers here...
HU SHI: What is “The Significance of The New Thought”?
Hu was perhaps the leading academic intellectual of his generation. An important qualifier because it sets up my argument around Mao and the CCP to come below. Different from and even opposed to Liang Qichao but also similar in being intellectuals and not political revolutionaries or politicians in the GMD sense. They might be called “reformists” versus radicals—but look at what they are saying. It is obviously not just about tinkering with Chinese society and the old system—they also seem to want massive change.,
Let’s look at the headnote briefly for some terms again: Confucianism and Liberalism—go to handouts.
What is “The Significance of The New Thought”? He claims it is the “new attitude”, the “critical attitude.” He then goes on to describe this. Let’s try and understand it in our own words.
Like Chen D, he also cites Nietzsche and his call for “the trans-valuation of all values.” For N. this means more than what HS seems to call for— which on the surface is just judging b/w the merits and demerits of things, studying the problems and introducing new (Western) theories.
But he gets more and more radical and strident by the end: the aim to is re-create civilization (this is more like Nietzsche) (255) and one must even “oppose compromise” (254). Cant get more strident or militant than that. Also calls it a “reorganization” of our national heritage.”
254: no compromise! Right or wrong…
255: must introduce academic theories….. is this possible or likely?
255: “Liberation by inches…” this is very perceptive… let’s try and understand this. Pragmatism again. But one crossed with a militancy against the past and tradition (the “Confucian” and feudal).
LIANG CHI-CHAO, 1873-1929
Differs from Chen D in seeming more aware of the problems of social Darwinism. Yet he seems so evolutionist/teleological that its clear he is a mixed bag of contradictions in his thinking....
“then expansion of the Chinese race” a 5k year project!—thru colonization and assimilation of “aliens”. Manchus are now part of Chinese “race.” Concludes a “great stage.” 268 and is “worth celebrating”... 269
Now why is LC saying stuff like this? It’s part of social Darwinism but also part of a new discourse/philosophy in China: that of nationalism and the nation-state as such.
What is nationalism? 1. Imagined community. 2. desire for, pursuit of a modern nation-state. A political form. Definite boundaries. A unified government. FREE from external influence and interventions (sovereignty)
272: nation-state and democracy… What are these? Why does China need them?
Recall that China was “feudal” and dynastic; this means it wasn’t a nation. Hence no nationalism— loyalty, pride, even love of the empire, and so on—but not of the nation as such. . It was an empire, and so forth. NOW: “they” see the need to become a nation, just like the rest of the Western world. As if there was no alternative, and indeed perhaps there was not: they could be a colony or a nation, period. Allegedly, and according to Western thought, to be a nation you must have unity: unity in language, in blood/race, and in soil/boundaries, and in “culture.” The nation is seen as a stage in world history and cultural/human development; it’s a modern thing and a good thing. Thus LC sees and wants China as moving into this (and it indeed already has, in his view). He is not explicitly saying China should imitate the West as such, but this is implicitly what he seems to be arguing and assuming.
Liang’s article is also rehearsing much of what we have seen/said before about cultural insufficiency and need for political reform/transformation. Note the end of the civil service examination, which was based on Confucian education and highly elitist or done through connections/networks, not through “modern:” education or “merit”/equal opportunity. All of these May 4th folks were NOT products of
then old edu. system and civil examination.
Maoism and the CCP: from May 4
thto 1949:
the transition from “liberalism” and thought-experiments and “reform” to revolution, the Party and:
Mao Zedong, 1893-1976
Begin by looking at Hu Shi on p. 254. He refers to the revolutionary type or option for
In short, what we have in this Mao essay is someone who is actually doing what, in a sense, all the others are merely proclaiming the need for: transforming the country. More importantly, he is
documenting (and the CCP is trying to produce/organize) the democratic and cultural revolution that is actually existing and happening, on the ground and in the countryside of Hunan. Whereas the others are working in the urban centers of Beijing and Shanghai and so forth, these guys are out there organizing a revolution but also observing and learning from the activities of the workers and peasants. As 209 indicates, he is actually talking to them and lecturing among them….
On culture, see for example, p. 207 and the role of women in the revolution/peasant uprisings. There is a great critique of patriarchy here and of what he calls “political authority” or “political power”. This is a new type of political consciousness being born in China-- via Marx and Lenin through Mao. It is in short an extraordinary ability to think politically. In terms of classes and social and ideological or cultural power. The landlords and elite have been able to define reality for centuries and Mao – and the peasants – are discovering another, deeper level of reality beneath them. In the event, the moment those women planted their backsides into the seats, the old order was over. It took decades more, but here it is in germinal form. 199 gone are their “prestige and prerogatives.”
Mao is different than the others we’ve read in that his focus is on politics or revolution, and then on economic revolution/change. Only then does culture come into it, as if it were a side-effect of the other two. See208” first do the political change and overthrow the landlords political authority, then the economic base by re-distributing land and changing taxes/laws, and then the culture will follow
because this will create a new culture. Without changing these political/economic/social relations, you can’t change the culture anyway.
What Mao is also doing here: He is trying to get the CCP to focus on peasants and base the revolution in the countryside, in what they are already doing (albeit with the help of CCP cadres). Until this date the CCP has been focused on the cities and on the urban workers/proletariat (Chen Duxiu was part of the problem here). This hasn’t been working. They were doing this b./c they were following the Russian/Marxist example of revolution, but conditions in China were quite different.
This is an important document b/c it shows the peasant/rural orientation of Mao and eventually the CCP—the “correct line:” it would eventually win years later. It is also the first real, substantial Marxist analysis of the countryside/peasant issue. What’s the issue? Well: before this, most Marxists saw the peasants as too conservative and backward to lead the revolution against capitalism, in part because they weren’t really part of capitalism but of feudalism and the ancient, non-modern world/economy.
So: what Mao is in effect doing here – unlike the earlier people—is taking a Western theory of revolution and politics and economy (Marxism) and giving it “Chinese characteristics”. He isn’t chucking all of Chinese reality/history, but trying to fit these things together, to change and save China.
The Peasant Associations have achieved 14 things: 204—end. Each of these are significant. They are also, in effect, a work of ethnography or political anthropology. The implicit message where is: what have the May 4th intellectuals and GMD and urban people done? Could we name one thing?
to speak, or “dialectic relationship.” We’ll come back to this point when we discuss the “mass line” idea of Mao and the CCP.
We also have to read and know:
1. the famous line about revolution not being a dinner party. 2. how he justifies violence or revolutionary upheaval
3. the elitism of those who would be horrified by peasant revolt and violence is un-democratic 4. the peasants/masses are making history and revolution already. You can either join the struggle
and try and make it with them, or be swept up in the tide
5. no one has ever thought and said these things before, least of all in China.
It is worth listing and learning the various sub-headings of his essay. We can do this in class.
