HISTORY. Subject : History (For under graduate student.)

Transcription

1 History of China Page 1 of 13 HISTORY Subject : History (For under graduate student.) Paper No. : Paper- VIII History of China Unit, Chapter : Unit- 1 Chapter- 4 Topic No. & Title : Part- 10 May 4 th Movement of 1919 Part 2 May 4 Movement of 1919 II Immediate Cause The immediate cause of the May 4 Movement was the adverse attitude of the big powers and the mishandling of the Shantung question at the Versailles Peace Conference held in January Previously, Germany enjoyed some privileges in Shantung. At the Conference, China demanded the abolition of all privileges enjoyed by foreign powers, the abrogation of the Twenty-one Demands and the return to China of all privileges in Shantung, held earlier by Germany and then by Japan after the War. But these demands of the Chinese government were turned down, German interests

2 History of China Page 2 of 13 were handed over to Japan and China s other demands not discussed at all. China s failure in the diplomatic field thoroughly disillusioned the Chinese people. They came to realize that only by relying on their own efforts could they decide the destiny of their own country. Beginning and spread On May 4, 1919, about 5,000 students of Peking organized a mammoth demonstration against the verdict of the Versailles Settlement on Shantung and demanding the punishment of the signatories to the Twenty-one Demands. A number of students were arrested by the police. The students replied with calling a strike and on 3 June, the police arrested more than 300 students and put a ban on all patriotic movements. The result was the still more rapid expansion of the movement throughout the country. Meanwhile, thousands of telegrams were sent to the Chinese delegation at Paris, calling upon them to withdraw from the conference. The most important of those was the one sent by the Society for China s Salvation. It read as follows: The whole nation is indignant over the failure of the Shantung question. Never

3 History of China Page 3 of 13 sign the treaty. We demand your immediate withdrawal from the Conference. Better to have forced occupation than voluntary submission. Otherwise sole responsibility rests on you. The period from May 4 to June 3 constituted the first phase of the movement. The second phase started since then with the shifting of the centre of the movement from Peking to Shanghai, the bastion of the working class. In the second phase, the working class came to the fore as the main force of the movement. From June 5 to 11, about 70,000 workers of the textile and metal-working industries and transport and public services in Shanghai went on strike. The strike also involved workers in the Japanese-owned textile mills and in US, British and French enterprises a sign of the antiimperialist sentiments of the workers indeed! Incidentally, this was the first anti-imperialist strike of the working class in the history of China. The bourgeoisie also joined this movement. As the market for Chinese manufacturers widened after the outbreak of the May 4 Movement, the Shanghai bourgeoisie took a favourable attitude towards the student movement. In fact, industrial and commercial enterprises

4 History of China Page 4 of 13 suspended business on June 5, and those in other cities followed suit soon after. In this way, the May 4 Movement crossed the boundary of Peking, spread to other cities and thereby took the form of a countrywide city-based mass movement embracing workers, students, merchants and other social groups. This united pressure of the people forced the Chinese government to release the arrested students, dismiss officials and also forced the Chinese delegation to the Paris Conference to refrain from signing the Versailles Treaty. This was a great victory of the May 4 Movement. Significance There is no doubt that the May 4 Movement served as a conscious tool of history for the intellectual revolution that influenced the course of the future history of China. The holocaust of the First World War made many people disillusioned about the efficacy of the Western Civilization. Some still believed in the necessity of traditional Confucian ethics and morality. Some others were bitterly disappointed by the Versailles Conference and started to believe that salvation lay in the path shown by the October Revolution and

5 History of China Page 5 of 13 Socialism. There were thus different strands of thought together with debates on the relative value of Eastern and Western civilizations, of science and metaphysics, and renewed attempts to re-evaluate the Chinese national heritage by modern standards. All these propelled the intellectual movement forward. In the May 4 Movement, foreign intellectuals as also Chinese intellectuals who had studied abroad played some part. With Hu Shih as interpreter, John Dewey gave a number of public lectures in China on his political philosophy of pragmatism, ideas about education, methods of thought, ethics etc. He held that China could not be changed without a social transformation based on a transformation of ideas. To him, political revolution was a failure. Another leading Western thinker, Bertrand Russell gave a message different from what was given by Dewey. Being a pacifist, he extolled the value of the tranquil, humane, tolerant and pacific Chinese outlook on life. However, Russell s advice was not much acceptable to the Chinese intellectuals who wanted to be patriotic, nationalistic and active, rather than pacific, filial and passive.

6 History of China Page 6 of 13 Hu Shih advocated an evolutionary drop-by-drop development of Chinese society through the study and solution of specific, practical problems. On the other hand, Li Ta-chao and Chen Tu-hsiu, stood for an immediate and thoroughgoing socio-political transformation, after the Soviet model, i.e, through revolutionary means. Hu Shih was very critical of isms and cautioned against blind activism and rudderless revolutions. Li Tao-chao, who introduced Marxism into China, on the other hand, argued that isms were necessary to provide a common direction in solving social problems. Chow Tse-tsung remarked that the May 4 Movement was unique both in breadth of activity as also depth of significance. This was the first time that the Chinese intellectuals recognized the need for a fundamental transformation of the traditional Chinese civilization. Before her contact with the West, China s civilization had never been seriously challenged by external influence, except to some extent by Indian Buddhism. The Opium War had demonstrated the power of the West, and that made the Chinese intellectuals realize that China should learn from Western science. This was the first stage of China s response

7 History of China Page 7 of 13 and it ended with China s defeat at the hands of Japan in the war of Since then, the second phase started, when the Chinese intellectuals came to believe that China should not only learn from Western science, but should also model her laws and political institutions after those of the West. After that came the third stage. That was the era of the May 4 Movement. Then the intellectuals claimed that China s philosophy and social theories should also be thoroughly reexamined in the light of Western experience. It was not a partial renovation, but an attempt at the dethronement of the basis of the old tradition and heritage and its replacement with a totally new culture. Achievements In the years following the May 4 Movement, new books and periodicals were published in large numbers. Side by side, there was a rising tide of iconoclasm. Traditional thought and institutions were attacked. Everything had to justify in the judgement-seat of reason or give up existence. The old order yielded its place to the new. The most important achievement of the movement probably lay in the ideological sphere. The new intellectuals, like the

8 History of China Page 8 of 13 Taipings before them, attacked Confucianism and raised the slogan, Down with Confucianism & Sons. The first article criticizing Confucius by name appeared in 1916 in New Youth written by Yi Pai-sha. He stated that Confucianism had no right to claim a monopoly over Chinese thought. Chen Tu-hsiu opposed the doctrine mainly on grounds that it was a product of feudal ages and so did not fit the needs of a modern society. He added that Confucianism advocated superfluous ceremonies, preached the morality of meek compliance and decried struggle and competition. Modern society, according to him, was composed of individuals acting as independent units whereas Confucian feudal society was composed of family and clan units. Another champion of anti-confucianism was Wu Yu. He argued that its advocacy of paternalism had become the basis of despotism, and that its basic ethical principle filial piety became the basis of unquestioning loyalty to the sovereign. The new ideas also attacked the theories of rebirth and of the existence of ghosts and spiritualism, as well as divination, fortune telling and the treatment of diseases by means of charms. These ideological changes were accompanied and helped by the adoption of the vernacular as a medium for writing, by

9 History of China Page 9 of 13 the creation of a new literature based on humanitarianism, romanticism and realism, and by the rapid development of the press and of popular education. Lu Hsun, the most remarkable product of the movement, began his work as one of the pioneers of a new revolutionary-democratic literature. In his short stories, he assailed conservatism, superstition and the old ethics. As a writer he was primarily a fighter. He had been acclaimed as the Maxim Gorky of China. Hsu Mouyung compared him to Voltaire of the French Revolution. Along with these intellectual and intellectual changes, there occurred social transformation. The traditional family system gradually declined. Marriage based on the free choice of partners was more frequently demanded. As against the old family and clan systems, the Chinese youth strove to assert their personalities and rights in society. Cooperative arrangements were made, public nurseries were set up and measures of social security were introduced to emancipate women from the eternal drudgeries of housekeeping and child care. Girls struggling against family or marriage bondage or for education often got public support. They began to be emancipated from the traditional shackles and they took part in political and social activities. In fact, the May 4 Movement

10 History of China Page 10 of 13 started and propelled what Chow Tse-tsung described as a revolution of the family. The economic structure of China also underwent changes. These were accompanied by the progressive decline of the landlords position, unrest among the peasantry, an increase of political activities on the part of the urban dwellers and the growing importance of the labour problem. The May 4 Movement contributed, in many ways, also to the political process in China. It hastened the unification of China in the nation-state pattern by drawing the people together in thought and action. Socialism, democracy and the ideas of national freedom and independence gained respectability among the intelligentsia, while warlordism, imperialism and colonialism became political targets. One of the most important outcome of the movement was the formation of the Communist Party of China(CPC) in Lucien Bianco holds that the May 4 Movement was a ground-clearing enterprise; it foreshadowed and paved the way for 1949 just as Voltaire had for 1789.

11 History of China Page 11 of 13 Shortcomings While the achievements of the May 4 Movement were numerous, it also suffered from certain limitations. Chow Tsetsung says that it did not give Chinese tradition a fair measure of consideration, so that many important features of Confucianism and the national legacy were overlooked. He adds that the reformers were also too impatient to do constructive work. Chow, however, admits that these limitations were perhaps necessary and unavoidable in such a situation of national ferment. Estimate The May 4 Movement has evoked a lot of controversy. Of the major interpretations the major ones are those of the liberals and the Marxists. The liberal view is represented by Chen Tuhsiu, Hu Shih and others, while the Marxist view is represented by Mao Tse-tung. The liberals hold that it was a Chinese Renaissance which was somewhat similar to the European Renaissance. They stressed that it was a movement of reason vs. tradition, freedom vs. authority and that the movement had promoted a new literature in the living language of the people.

12 History of China Page 12 of 13 Chow Tse-tsung, however, argues that the differences between the two renaissances were more numerous than resemblances. First, Europe in the late Middle Ages was the scene of a commercial revolution attended by a strong demand for the expansion of markets and for colonies abroad; while Chinese economy was semi-colonial rather than expansive. Second, the European Renaissance was the substitution of ancient Graeco-Roman ideas for medieval ideas. But the May 4 Movement was not a restoration movement; it aimed at the transplantation of a modern civilization into an old nation, accompanied by bitter criticism of the old civilization. In fact, Down with Confucius & Sons was the spirit of the time. If there was any restoration, it lay in the rediscovery of the real nature of antiquity as a result of the new learning from the West. Chow Tse-tsung adds that the most convincing argument in defence of the Chinese Renaissance may lie in the adoption of the vernacular as a national language and the establishment of the new literature. On the other hand, the Marxist view represented by Mao tsetung considered it as the jumping-off point of the anti-

13 History of China Page 13 of 13 imperialist and anti-feudal bourgeois-democratic revolution leading to a new stage. To Mao, its attack against old ethics and old literature was the main feature of this Chinese cultural revolution, which was unprecedented in Chinese history. It was, according to Mao, a dividing line between old and new democracies; it took place at the summons of the Russian Revolution and formed part of the world proletarian revolution. Mao added that the movement was an antiimperialist united front composed of the Chinese workers, students and the newly rising national bourgeoisie. It may be said that the basic aspect of the movement was its transitional character. Chow Tse-tsung remarks that it constituted a dividing line in the intellectual, cultural and socio-political history of modern China and marked the beginning of a new era.