The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Harvard East Asian Series)

The May Fourth Movement was a Chineseanti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement which grew out of studentprotests in Beijing on May 4, 1919. Students gathered in front of Tiananmen(The Gate of Heavenly Peace) to protest the Chinese government's weak responseto the Treaty of Versailles decision to allow Japan to retain territories inShandong that had been surrendered by Germany after the Siege of Tsingtao in1914. The demonstrations sparked nation-wide protests and spurred an upsurge inChinese nationalism, a shift towards political mobilization away from culturalactivities, and a move towards a populist base, away from traditionalintellectual and political elites. The May Fourth demonstrations marked a turning point in abroader anti-traditional New Culture Movement (1915–1921) that sought toreplace traditional Confucian values and was itself a continuation of late Qingreforms. Yet even after 1919, these educated "new youths" stilldefined their role with a traditional model in which the educated elite tookresponsibility for both cultural and political affairs. They opposedtraditional culture but looked abroad for cosmopolitan inspiration in the nameof nationalism and were an overwhelmingly urban movement that espoused populismin an overwhelmingly rural country. Many political and social leaders of thenext five decades emerged at this time, including those of the ChineseCommunist Party.[source: Wikipedia] All observers agree that the movement named for the students’ mass demonstration of May 4, 1919, is a turning point in China’s history; yet its precise significance is disputed. The Chinese Communists see it as the beginning of a popular movement that brought them to power thirty years later. The heart of the movement, as carefully described in Tse-tsung Chow’s volume, involved, in the first instance, the criticism by China’s young intelligentsia of traditional thought and institutions. It involved a search for new solutions in terms of Western democracy and science. The movement, which roughly covers the years 1917–1921, was intensified to new heights by the student strikes of 1919 against the decisions on China reached at Versailles and against the Chinese government’s policy toward Japan. The ideas and tendencies that arose out of the movement have determined the subsequent course of Chinese history. Without an understanding of this movement, recent Chinese history remains a closed book. There Are Few Major Events In Modern Chinese History So Controversial, So Much Discussed, Yet So Inadequately Treated As The May Fourth Movement. For Some Chinese It Marks A National Renaissance Or Liberation, For Others A National Catastrophe. Among Those Who Discuss Or Celebrate It Most, Views Vary Greatly. Every May For The Last Forty Years, Numerous Articles Have Analyzed And Commented On The Movement. Several Books Devoted Entirely To The Subject And Hundreds Touching On It Have Been Published In Chinese. The Literature On The Subject Is Massive, Yet Most Of It Offers More Polemic Than Factual Accounts. Most Westerners Possess But Fragmentary And Inaccurate Information On The Subject. For These Reasons, Preparation Of This Volume Recounting The Events Of The Movement And Examining In Detail Its Currents And Effects Has Seemed To Me Worthwhile. Chow Tse-tsung. Added T.p. In Chinese. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [319]-456) And Index.