The Last 15 Years of Chen Duxiu

Author: Yuan Yazhong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: The May Fourth Movement was an inevitable product of modern Chinese social development. Whether it was a success or a failure, it should not be solely attributed to a few individuals. However, Mr. Cai, Mr. Hu, and I were the main bearers of responsibility in terms of thought and speech at that time. Zhang Guotao tried to recruit me, but I told him I didn’t have the ability for it. I am not a newcomer to society, and society judges itself. Their unreasonable slander and attacks do me no harm; only they expose their own ugliness. In the future, when the final account is settled in court, there is nothing else but morality should be adapted to the changes of social systems rather than remain unchanging: Morality is for self-discipline, not for blaming others; Morality requires personal practice, not just shouting about it.
To stir up the hundred-meter tide of Dream of the Red Chamber, back then, my youthful spirit surged into the night sky. In my later years, the desolation was hard to understand, the rain at Jiangjin shook without ceasing. This person, after 1927, became the lonely giant in modern Chinese history. This person was the leader of the May Fourth Movement, the pillar of new culture, and the pioneer who opened up a new era for China. In his later life, half-dusted with praise and blame, he—wandered in the world for forty years, confused about his own knowledge and faults, leaving right and wrong to the ages to judge, and whether praise or blame, let the mouths of the masses spread it.