May 4th Movement, 1919

The May 4th Movement refers narrowly to the outburst of political

demonstrations that occurred on May 4th, 1919, in response to the humiliating
provisions of the Treaty of Versailles (among them that Shantung should be
transferred to Japanese control). Taken more broadly, the term covers the
movement for political, cultural and social change that was set in motion by
these demonstrations but grew out of trends within Chinese society and
thought. The broader cultural movement built on this sense of outrage over
China’s weak international position, using it to bring to the fore questions
about China’s identity, national values, and culture. This is also called an
Intellectual Revolution taking place between 1917 and 1923 hailed a New
Cultural Movement has sometimes exaggeratedly called as a “Chinese
Renaissance.” A highest-point of this period was student demonstration in
Peking on May 4th, 1919.
The movement’s many contributors (foreign-returned intellectuals) focused on
a variety of areas, but all agreed on the importance of revitalizing and unifying
China so that it could combat warlordism, exploitation in the land-owning
system, and foreign imperialism.
The seeds of the May 4th movement were sown during the Revolutions of
1911 by Sun Yat Sen when he formulated 'the notion of nationalism for the
affirmation of Chinese identity against that of the Manchu rule'. As the
Manchus left, Nationalism receded provisionally but was soon shadowed again
against foreign imperialism. Chinese intellectuals turned politicized- some of
them aligned with the Communist while some with the Nationalists depending
on whichever they thought was more likely to "Rescue and Safeguard the
Nation". Hence, The May 4th movement became a symbol used by both the
left and the right for their own purposes. The most prominent among the
intellectuals were, Chen Tu-Hsiu, Tsai Yuan-pei, and Hu Shih.
Chen Tu Hsiu founded the New Youth Magazine to arouse the youth of the
country to destroy the stagnant old traditions and forge a new culture. Tsai
Yuan-pei took over the chancellorship of the National University of Peking. And
Hu Shih introduced the plain language (pai-hua) in writing. These intellectuals
were against the Confucian ideology and rosed for liberalism, individualism,
science, and democracy.
The economic changes were, to be fair, elementary- however, the social
changes were dramatic and they soon found their way into the Chinese
society. On one hand, the economic development in China had started to
accelerate the pace of Urbanization; it had led to manifestation of an
unprecedented class of merchants, industrialists and urban work force. Parallel
to these developments, the civil wars ( 1915-1922), calamities and collapse of
rural economy became definite factors leading to amplification of numbers of
landless peasants. These landless peasants, the itinerant population played an
explicit role in reassuring warlordism in China.
It is important to take not that China was well on its way to a departure from
its own traditional ideology . Woodrow points out that the outbreak of the
October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and many such movements which were
progressive in nature were rampant around the world at around this time.
In 1918, students at Peita organized a magazine called the New Tide which was
governed by three criteria: a critical spirit, scientific thinking, and a reformed
rhetoric. The New Youth and the New Tide along with the Weekly Critic
launched an attack on traditionalism-old literature, old ethics, old human
relations, and Confucianism.
The new intellectuals were products of a transitional period all thoroughly
grounded in Chinese classical studies and yet well acquainted with Western
Civilization. Their call for re-evaluation of the national heritage and the
introduction of Western thought and ideologies sparked an intellectual
revolution which dealt a shattering blow to traditionalism and ushered in the
period of the New Cultural Movement.
On May 4th, 1919 about 5000 students in Peking held a huge demonstration
against the verdict of the Versailles Peace Conference on Shantung, wherein,
Shantung was given to Japanese Government. The students decided to send
telegrams to the Versailles Conference to protest the unjust verdict and to the
Chinese delegation to urge the rejection of the treaty if the terms on Shantung
were not revised. It was also resolved to stage a mass demonstration and to
present petitions to the foreign legations for transmittal to Paris. The strike
quickly spread to students in other major cities, even the students from the
rural areas participated actively. Police arrested the students, the leftover
students retaliated with another strike on 3rd June, 1919. The police then also
made many arrests and announced a ban on the movement. This marked the
end of the first phase of the May 4th Movement ( May 4th- 3rd June).
The second phase of the movement started from 3 rd June to 7th June, 1919,
where the working class along with the bourgeois class actively participated.
Thousand of textile workers, and other industry workers went on strike in
Shanghai. The bourgeois class saw the opportunity for development in the
industries. The National businesses in Shanghai also joined the movement to
protest.
It was at once an explosion of public anger, an outburst of nationalism, a deep
disappointment in the West, and a violent indictment of the “traitorous”
warlord government in Peking. So powerful and so-far reaching was this
incident that it evoked an immediate national response and pressured he
Chinese delegation at Versailles to reject the peace treaty. Nationalism, mass
demonstration, and public opinion emerged out as new forces in Chinese
politics.
The interest in the West continued in the days followed, a split appeared
among the Chinese intellectuals. Those who were bitterly disappointed by the
Versailles Conference began to turn to Marxist Socialism others who were
tradition-bound blamed the Western materialism as the cause of World War I
and suggested Chinese spiritualism as an antidote.
John Dewey gave a number of public lectures on his social and political
philosophy of pragmatism, on his own ideas about education, methods of
thought, and ethics; and on his views of the three leading contemporary
philosophers: Bergson, Russell, and James. He told his audiences, “China could
not be changed without a social transformation based upon a transformation
of ideas. The political revolution was a failure, because it was external, formal,
touching the mechanisms of social action but not affecting conceptions of life.”
Bertrand Russell extoled the value of tranquil, humane, tolerant, and pacific
Chinese outlook on life. He was attracted to the Taoist ideas of production
without possession, action and self-assertion and development without
domination. The main crux of Russell’s message that the West should learn
from China.
Apart from the foreign visitors, Western thought and ideologies were pursued
by the Chinese intellectuals themselves. Chen Tu-hsiu and Li Ta-chao
introduced Marx and Engels, while Li Ta wrote on the dialectical methods and
thoughts of Lenin, Bukharin, and Plekhanov. Hu Shih advocated an
evolutionary drop-by-drop improvement of society through the study and
solutions of specific, practical problems. Li Ta-chao argued for an immediate
and thoroughgoing sociopolitical transformation, after the Soviet fashion. Hu in
his article “More study of Problems and Less Talk of “Isms”, cautioned against
blind activism and rudderless revolutions, proposing instead spontaneous and
gradual reform to eliminate the five enemies- poverty, sickness, illiteracy,
corruption, and disorder.
Li Ta-chao, the leading convert to Marxism, replied that “isms” were necessary
to provide a “common direction” in solving social problems. On the surface,
the debate ended in Hu’s favor, yet it was a hollow victory, for it was the vogue
among youth to discuss “isms”, and even Hu himself constantly spoke of
liberalism, pragmatism, etc. Liang Chi-Chao blamed Western imperialism and
blind worship of science as the roots of conflict and suggested that Chinese
spiritualism might redress the imbalance. Liang Sou-Ming also argued against
science and democracy in an effort to defend the integrity of the Chinese
civilization. Thus, they both deprecated Western materialistic civilization in
direct proportion to their eulogy of Chinese spiritual civilization. They urged
their countrymen “Go East”.
On the other hand, Hu Shih and other advocates of Westernization said “Go
West”. Wu hui berated Liang Sou-Ming as a “useless creature of the 17 th
century”. Hu Shih announced that China lagged behind the West not only in
science and technology but also everything else.
FOR CONCLUSION, REFER, Pg 19.