History of the May Fourth Movement (Revised Edition)

Author: Peng Ming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-12-01
Features: The book "History of the May Fourth Movement" consists of 20 chapters and 526,000 words, discussing three main aspects: the social and ideological conditions for the occurrence of the May Fourth Movement, its development process, and its historical role and its position in the history of the Chinese Revolution. Without clarifying the rule of the Beiyang Warlord Government, it would be impossible to explain why the May Fourth Movement occurred. This book begins with a significant portion dedicated to describing the growing national crisis, the dark rule of feudal autocracy, and the plunder by foreign imperialism and warlord oppression in Chinese society during the Beiyang Warlord period. It also describes the development of Chinese national capitalism in difficult circumstances and the corresponding growth of new social forces, thereby explaining that the occurrence of the May Fourth Movement in 1919 and its becoming a great new starting point for the Chinese Revolution were not accidental. The author points out that before the May Fourth Movement, there were sporadic and spontaneous struggles among the masses, and a new revolutionary storm was also brewing. At the time, the New Culture Movement was the harbinger and prelude to this storm. After narrating the struggle between democracy and autocracy, and scientific thought and superstition, the author emphasizes that the "liberating role of this enlightenment movement in shaking the world and awakening the deaf and blind" must be sufficiently recognized. It must be admitted that this struggle, by undermining the ruling authority of feudal thought, objectively created certain conditions for people to later accept Marxism. At the same time, the author points out the weaknesses of the movement, such as "not being combined with political and mass movements" and having a "formalistic tendency," meaning an absolute affirmation of Western civilization, particularly fascist civilization. The author believes that "establishing a bourgeois republic was the common solution of the enlightenment thinkers at the time" and also the only choice they could make. However, when it came to how to implement this plan, "they could not provide a satisfactory answer." They lacked the ability to realize the kingdom of "freedom, equality, and fraternity" they envisioned on the land of a semi-colonial China. This very fact became the historical motivation for the advanced Chinese to later abandon the capitalist plan and turn toward socialism.