In the previous chapter, we saw how reform gave way to revolution in China. In this chapter, we will study the contestation of western and modern ideas against traditional teaching in the minds of the young intellectuals. One of the most exciting historical periods in China's long 20th century is the May 4th movement, also known as the New Culture Movement, circa 1915 to 1923. Emerging out of the chaotic political and cultural conditions accompanying the birth of the new republic. Young intellectuals explored the exciting possibility of creating a new cultural and social order by borrowing ideas from intellectuals all across the world. It was a heady time as the writings of Russian, French, American, British and Japanese thinkers were translated and introduced in the pages of new periodicals to readers in China. Young intellectuals debated and tried to put into practice what they learned from these thinkers. When the dust settled in the early 1920s, the political, cultural, and social landscape of China was forever changed. Some of the most important outcomes of the New Culture Movement were the rejection of the Confucian tradition and emphasis on individual freedom. And on a scientific way of thinking and living, and emancipation of women. The written language was changed from the classical format to a colloquial one. The New Culture Movement also foresaw the divergence of political affiliations among the leading intellectuals of the time, with those who placed faith in western democracy pitted against those who believed in Marxism and communism. Most of these debates took place in the pages of New Youth, also titled La Jeunesse, a journal edited by Chen Duxiu, who also founded the Chinese communist party at this time. America's influence was palpable in these debates, especially in the field of literature. As a student of John Dewey, Hu Shih, siding with the liberal and iconoclastic new cultural movement, was pitted against a student of Irving Babbitt, Mei Kuang-te, who opposed the destruction of classical tradition. It was a battle between the Chinese interpreter of pragmatism, versus the Chinese interpreter of New Humanism. Interestingly, both Hu Shih and Mei Kuang-te came from the same province of Anhwei and both received scholarships to study in the US from the American-initiated Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program. The scholarship was funded by the roughly 10 million silver dollars that the US received in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, and which President Roosevelt returned to China in 1908 for educational use. In 1916, as a PHD student at Colombia University and an advocate of Deweyan theory of pragmatism, Hu Shih submitted an essay to New Youth with eight suggestions to save Chinese literature from decadence and superfluity. These included advice on writing with substance, not imitating the ancients, adopting a positive tone of voice, and not using conventions such as parallelism, among others. The editor, Chen Duxiu, overjoyed at finding a kindred spirit, endorsed Hu's preliminary discussion on reforming literature as a thunderclap in the literary world. Chen agreed that ornate, empty and esoteric literature was responsible for China's sycophantic, hypocritical and impractical national character. Simple, honest, and realistic writing would create free and brave citizens who could save China. He promptly announced the beginning of a literary revolution in the pages of new youth. To inspire readers, Chen also translated the lyrics of the American national anthem. Opponents of the New Culture Movement were vociferous. The Harvard educated disciple of Irving Babbitt, Mei Kuang-te published a journal, Critical Review. Mei disagreed with Hu and Chen's attempt to destroy traditional literature and to discredit Confucianism. Developing from Babbitt's theory of New Humanism, Mei wanted to advocate a new Confucianism relevant for the times. In the end, the iconoclast won the battle over the language, and the Ministry of Education decreed that from 1920 on, all elementary textbooks were to be written in the vernacular language. As these debates raged on in the academic circles, on May 3rd, 1919, news came from Paris that the foreign powers who were negotiating the Treaty of Versailles following World War One. Agreed to allow Japan to take over the previously German occupied Chinese territories in Shandong. Speeches by Woodrow Wilson on the doctrine of self-determination had earlier led the Chinese public to believe that the US would support the return of Shandong to China. But American diplomats' hands were tied when it was revealed that the Chinese government had signed over the rights of Shandong to Japan in exchange for loans to finance their wars. Scandalized by their own government's treachery and feeling powerless in the face of Japanese Imperialism, thousands of students and teachers marched on to Tiananmen Square in Beijing. This protest movement, known as the May 4th demonstration, quickly spread to many cities in the country and united intellectuals, laborers and merchants in an unprecedented show of nationalism. A despondent Chen wrote, we still live in a world of banditry! After this world war...brute force still triumphs, making it inevitable for [another] world war. To avoid [another] war, we must reform the thoughts of humanity in order to erase their arrogant disregard of justice. This marked the turning point for intellectuals, such as Chen, to reject Western democracy and to embrace Marxism. In 1920, with the help of an agent from the Communist International Grigori Voitinsky, Chen created a Marxism study society in Shanghai. By the summer, Chen had established the first cell of the Chinese Communist Party. As the intellectuals began to split along ideological lines, Hu Shih invoked Deweyan pragmatism to counteract his leftist colleagues' turn to Marxism. While Chen and his comrade Li Dazhao believed that dialectical materialism and class struggle were the answers to China's problems, Hu urged that change could only be achieved in gradual increments by inches and by drops. And that the solution was found in studying individual problems and not in wholesale adoption of any political ideology. In this chapter, we saw how American philosophers and politicians played a prominent role in China's first cultural revolution in the 20th century. In the next chapter, we will discuss the life of Madame Chiang Kai-shek, whose personality exemplified a fascinating union of Chinese and American cultural and spiritual forces.
