The covers of some influential magazines during the May 4th Movement: Oriental Magazine.
The standard-bearer of liberalism is Hu Shi. Hu Shi declared that "we are freedom-loving people". He advocates and worships freedom, and thinks that "the liberal movement is a movement that loves, strives for and worships freedom". He raised freedom to a high level, almost reaching the point where freedom is everything and everything is for freedom, and fell into the fog of free fetishism. He linked the struggle for freedom with advocating individual liberation and women's liberation, severely condemned the crime of destroying personality and restricting the free development of personality in society, and hoped to establish a "society that truly respects individual freedom." In such a society, "you must not lose your independent personality." A social country has no free and independent personality ... that social country has no hope of improvement and progress. " Under Hu Shi's call for women's liberation and women's self-improvement, intellectual women walked out of feudal families and stepped into society, striving to become "self-improvement" newcomers like men. In the later period of the revolutionary war, Hu Shi and other liberal thoughts attempted to promote the so-called third way (or "middle route") between the Kuomintang and the * * * production party, swinging between revolution and counter-revolution. But most of them finally abandoned liberalism and went to socialism.
One of the characteristics of the four leaders is "harmony without difference"
On the eve of the May 4th Movement, Li Dazhao wrote to Hu Shi: "You have an inseparable relationship with New Youth. In the future, we are determined to combine new youth, trendy and weekly commentators ... Although there are many different opinions in this group, it may not be easy to find a person with the same color. " Here, Li Dazhao pointed out two points, one is that they are of the same color, and the other is that there are different opinions. This is reflected in the relationship between the four leaders.
The so-called "same color" means that the above four banners are anti-imperialist and anti-feudal, and they are all participants in the New Culture Movement, fighting for China's independence, democracy, freedom and equality. This patriotic belief united them and formed a patriotic united front against imperialism and feudalism. They form an organic whole with complementary advantages, and no one can do without anyone. Cai Yuanpei alone will not have a new culture movement; Similarly, Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, Li Dazhao and others alone will not have the New Culture Movement. Cai Yuanpei provided such a big platform for Chen, Hu and Li, and provided them with opportunities and conditions to give full play to their talents. Without Chen, Hu and Li's admiration for Cai Mingzhao, Cai Mingzhao could not have achieved such brilliant historical achievements as Peking University. They help and support each other and are willing to take risks to protect and rescue their friends. The sincere friendship between them, like their historical achievements, deserves a great book. However, the socialism and democracy of the four of them are of course different, and radicalism and liberalism are of course very different. With the in-depth development of the movement, some contradictions gradually emerged, and there were more and more differences. This led to the split of the editorial department of New Youth and the debate between Li Dazhao and Hu Shi about "Problems and Doctrine". However, the nature of this debate has been exaggerated for a long time. At present, the academic circles have generally realized that this debate is not an enemy-enemy issue, but a line, road and ideological struggle within the United front.
The reasons why the four leaders have not been recognized for a long time are historical methods and historical viewpoints.
First, I don't fully understand the history of the May 4th Movement. The May 4th Movement was divided into two stages: the early stage and the late stage. The early stage was the New Culture Movement, and the later stage was the May 4th Patriotic Movement. The early stage was a democratic movement, and the later stage was a democratic socialist movement. The New Culture Movement and the Ideological Emancipation Movement are the preparatory stages of the May 4th patriotic movement. Without the new culture movement, there would be no May 4th patriotic movement. The May 4th Patriotic Movement is the inevitable development of the New Culture Movement. In the New Culture Movement, the main leading force is the bourgeois democrats, and Cai Yuanpei, Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao all belong to this type. However, with the transformation of the New Culture Movement into the May 4th patriotic political movement, the spread of socialism and the arrival of the proletariat on the historical stage, the proletariat gradually became the leading force of the China revolution. The main reason why we have different or vague understanding of the leaders of the May 4th Movement today is that we have not strictly distinguished the two development stages of the May 4th Movement. Substituting the May 4th patriotic political movement for the whole May 4th movement and excluding the New Culture Movement, we only admit that Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu are the leaders of the May 4th movement, but deny that Cai Yuanpei and Hu Shi are also the leaders of the May 4th movement. This method of cutting off the history of the May 4th Movement is bound to draw some wrong historical conclusions.
First, when evaluating historical figures, it is mainly for this reason that their later historical problems deny their early achievements and deny that Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu were the leaders of the May 4th Movement. Hu Shi was denied, mainly because he served as the ambassador of the Kuomintang government to the United States for four years during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period and became an official of the Kuomintang. In fact, Hu Shi was mainly a scholar all his life, engaged in cultural and academic work, and was an official of the Kuomintang for a short time. Besides, he was an official of the Kuomintang during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period. During his ambassadorial period, his main job was to help Latin China, publicize China's anti-Japanese achievements and make certain contributions to War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. This is not only not excessive, but also meritorious. Chen Duxiu's problem is more complicated, and the outstanding problems are right opportunism and Trotskyism. Of course, Chen also made mistakes, but these problems are also mixed with the "left" opportunism of the international producers' party. He became a scapegoat for the mistakes made by Producers International in guiding China's revolution and an important target of "Left" opportunists. In short, personal historical issues should be analyzed and evaluated realistically, and the evaluation of his life is in the early stage and the later stage is the later stage. You can't use subtraction, you can't use mistakes to offset work, and you can't work hard to offset mistakes. It is unscientific and undesirable to use later historical problems to offset Chen and Hu's great contribution and historical position in the May 4th Movement.
The first is to politicize historical issues. During the period when the ultra-left ideological trend and the "historical view of class struggle" prevailed, the bourgeoisie, capitalism and even democracy became the objects of opposition and attack. Cai Yuanpei and Hu Shi are representatives of the bourgeoisie. How can we identify them as the leaders of the May 4th Movement? Under the ultra-left trend of thought, history is regarded as a tool of class struggle, emphasizing that history should serve real politics. Therefore, history is only revolutionary and not scientific; Not academic, just political. Chen Duxiu's achievements during the May 4th Movement have also become a sensitive political issue. Anyone who correctly evaluates Chen Duxiu during the May 4th Movement will be called a "traitor" and politically overthrown. The ultra-left ideological trend doubts everything, overturns everything, denies history and engages in national nihilism. Not only did bourgeois representatives who made opportunistic mistakes fail to admit that they were the leaders of the May 4th Movement, but even Li Dazhao, the representative of the proletariat and the first Marxist in China, was labeled as a "Democrat" and denied that he was the leader of the May 4th Movement. The "historical view of class struggle" with class struggle as the key link is the bane of denying or not recognizing Cai, Chen, Hu and even Li Dazhao as the leaders of the May 4th Movement.
Because of this, a large number of progressive youths rallied around Chen Duxiu and took an active part in the New Culture Movement. Some revolutionary youths even directly contacted Chen Duxiu and New Youth for support, and imitated New Youth to set up societies and run publications in various places, forming a huge national new cultural force. More famous is that Mao Zedong organized the Xinmin Society in Changsha and founded Xiangjiang Review. Yunhe organized the "New Voice Society" in Wuhan and published the magazine "New Voice". They all take Chen Duxiu as their leader and New Youth as their guide. For example, in March of 19 19, Yun and others wrote to New Youth and said, "Our life has been in chaos. Since watching "New Youth", we have gradually awakened, just like seeing the dawn in a dark place. " Chen Duxiu during the May Fourth Movement, as Mao Zedong later commented, "The commander-in-chief of the May Fourth Movement, the whole movement was actually led by him."
During the May 4th Movement, Hu Shi was almost as famous as Chen Duxiu, often referred to as "Chen Hu" for short, and his position and influence were second only to that of Chen Duxiu. Hu's greatest contribution to the New Culture Movement is to actively advocate the "literary revolution" and the vernacular Chinese. His initiative was supported and advocated by Chen Duxiu, Qian, Liu Bannong and others. Subsequently, the slogan of "literary revolution" swept the country. The greatest achievement of the "literary revolution" is to liberate literature from the hands of aristocrats and restore it to the hands of ordinary people, so that the broad masses of the people quickly accepted new ideas, new morality and new culture, improved their level of understanding and ideological consciousness, and made the New Culture Movement quickly form a national movement, which had a far-reaching impact on China's social modernization.
If Li Dazhao played a leading role in the New Culture Movement mainly by Cai, Chen and Hu, then it was Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu in the May 4th Patriotic Movement. Li's main contribution to this movement is to spread Marxism. Because of Li Dazhao's introduction and propaganda of Marxism, China people began to walk out of the evolutionary view of history and arm themselves with historical materialism. This fundamentally reversed the development direction of the May 4th Movement, that is, the China Revolution turned to the socialist category, which opened the prelude to the new-democratic revolution in China. Due to the spread of Marxism, Li Dazhao trained a large number of advanced elements with preliminary thoughts of productism in the May 4th Movement, such as Deng Zhongxia, Yunnan, Zhao Shiyan, Zhang Wentian, Gao, He Mengxiong and Luo, who played an important role in the May 4th Movement. Li Dazhao also called on intellectuals to combine with workers and peasants to push the working class in China onto the historical stage. These all prepared the cadre conditions for the later establishment of China * * * production party. These great achievements that go down in history are unmatched by any May 4th leader.
The leading role, influence and appeal of the four leaders are mainly reflected in their ideological spirit.
The "Four Leaders" of the May 4th Movement mainly refer to ideological leaders or spiritual leaders. Their leading role, influence and appeal are mainly reflected in their ideological spirit. There are four main categories of political thoughts and social thoughts during the May 4th Movement: democracy, socialism, radicalism and liberalism.
Cai Yuanpei, the banner of democracy is held high. During the May 4th Movement, due to the frustration of the revolution led by Sun Yat-sen, the democratic movement in the south was temporarily at a low ebb .. In the north, democracy was on the rise. The new culture movement itself is a democratic movement. Cai Yuanpei was originally a revolutionary Democrat during the Revolution of 1911, pursuing national independence, national prosperity, democracy and freedom. In the later revolutionary process, he appeared as an educator and took the road of saving the country through education. Therefore, his democratic thought is embodied in his democratic education practice. In modern China, revolutionary democrats always regard socialism as their ally. Cai, like other revolutionary Democrats, welcomed the October Revolution and sympathized with socialism. Even during the May 4th Movement, he shouted the slogan of "sacred labor", which further sublimated his democratic thoughts and made the banner of democracy more colorful.
Li Dazhao holds high the banner of socialism. The May 4th Movement was a great debate and turning point for China's advanced elements on the revolutionary viewpoint of whether China should take the capitalist road or the socialist road. During the New Culture Movement, China's advanced elements all pursued democracy and yearned for western capitalism. But China's failure at the Paris Peace Conference, when power triumphed over justice, people began to wake up and began to doubt capitalism. At this time, the October Socialist Revolution broke out in Russia, announcing the abolition of the unequal treaties imposed on China by Russia. People's eyes turned to Russia and socialism, and many advanced elements thought that socialism was the way out for China. Therefore, during the May 4th Movement, great socialist thoughts appeared in China, such as Kilt socialism, anarchy socialism, trade union socialism, Fourier utopian socialism, Tolstoy's non-resistance socialism and Saneatsu Mushakoji's new village socialism. These thoughts aroused people's interest and concern about socialism, but also disturbed people's sight of scientific socialism. In this case, Li Dazhao held high the banner of scientific socialism, criticized all kinds of improved socialism, and corrected or reversed some people's wrong understanding of socialism. For example, in response to some people's doubts about the socialist class struggle, Li Dazhao pointed out that there is no class struggle in socialist society, and class struggle is only "a way of self-destruction of class society"; After the establishment of socialism, class struggle will soon be "extinguished", and the socialist society established instead will be a society of cooperation, friendship, mutual assistance and fraternity. In Li Dazhao's view, cooperation, friendship, mutual assistance and fraternity are the spirit and characteristics of socialism, and socialism is a very beautiful and harmonious society. Under the guidance of Li Dazhao's socialist thought, more and more people gathered under the banner of socialism, which expanded the socialist ranks, strengthened the socialist forces, and ensured the victory of the May 4th Movement and its development direction to socialism.
The representative of radicalism is Chen Duxiu. The radicalism in modern China is different from the radicalism understood by modern people. Modern radicalism is revolutionary, including revolutionary democracy and socialism. During the May 4th Movement, Chen Duxiu's criticism of feudalism was particularly fierce, and he was often called a "pioneer". Of course, this kind of radicalism will inevitably have some extremes in actual operation, replacing rationality with emotion and saying some exaggerated words. For example, when he criticized the old morality, he totally denied that it was "slave morality"; Oppose old literature and condemn it as "aristocratic literature"; When comparing Chinese and western cultures, they think that everything in the Chinese nation is "despicable" and everything in the western nation is "noble", advocating "Europeanization"; Wait a minute. Of course, these remarks are one-sided, but they are also angry words that "hate iron and not produce steel", and there are also some meanings that "a serious illness requires strong medicine".
The standard-bearer of liberalism is Hu Shi. Hu Shi declared that "we are freedom-loving people". He advocates and worships freedom, and thinks that "the liberal movement is a movement that loves, strives for and worships freedom". He raised freedom to a high level, almost reaching the point where freedom is everything and everything is for freedom, and fell into the fog of free fetishism. He linked the struggle for freedom with advocating individual liberation and women's liberation, severely condemned the crimes of destroying personality and restricting its free development in society, and hoped to establish a "society that truly respects individual freedom." In such a society, "you must not lose your independent personality." A social country without a free and independent personality has no hope of improvement and progress. " Under Hu Shi's call for women's liberation and women's self-improvement, intellectual women walked out of feudal families and stepped into society, striving to become "self-improvement" newcomers like men. In the later period of the revolutionary war, Hu Shi and other liberal thoughts attempted to promote the so-called third way (or "middle route") between the Kuomintang and the * * * production party, swinging between revolution and counter-revolution. But most of them finally abandoned liberalism and went to socialism.
One of the characteristics of the four leaders is "harmony without difference"
On the eve of the May 4th Movement, Li Dazhao wrote to Hu Shi: "You have an inseparable relationship with New Youth. Those who are determined to combine new youth, new trends and weekly reviews in the future. Of course, there are many different opinions in this group, but it may not be easy to find another one with the same color. " Here, Li Dazhao pointed out two points, one is that they are of the same color, and the other is that there are different opinions. This is reflected in the relationship between the four leaders.
The so-called "same color" means that the above four banners are anti-imperialist and anti-feudal, and they are all participants in the New Culture Movement, fighting for China's independence, democracy, freedom and equality. This patriotic belief united them and formed a patriotic united front against imperialism and feudalism. They form an organic whole with complementary advantages, and no one can do without anyone. Cai Yuanpei alone will not have a new culture movement; Similarly, Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, Li Dazhao and others alone will not have the New Culture Movement. Cai Yuanpei provided such a big platform for Chen, Hu and Li, and provided them with opportunities and conditions to give full play to their talents. Without Chen, Hu and Li's admiration for Cai Mingzhao, Cai Mingzhao could not have achieved such brilliant historical achievements as Peking University. They help and support each other and are willing to take risks to protect and rescue their friends. The sincere friendship between them, like their historical achievements, deserves a great book. However, the socialism and democracy of the four of them are of course different, and radicalism and liberalism are of course very different. With the in-depth development of the movement, some contradictions gradually emerged, and there were more and more differences. This led to the split of the editorial department of New Youth and the debate between Li Dazhao and Hu Shi about "Problems and Doctrine". However, the nature of this debate has been exaggerated for a long time. At present, the academic circles have generally realized that this debate is not an enemy-enemy issue, but a line, road and ideological struggle within the United front.
The reasons why the four leaders have not been recognized for a long time are historical methods and historical viewpoints.
First, I don't fully understand the history of the May 4th Movement. The May 4th Movement was divided into two stages: the early stage and the late stage. The early stage was the New Culture Movement, and the later stage was the May 4th Patriotic Movement. The early stage was a democratic movement, and the later stage was a democratic socialist movement. The New Culture Movement and the Ideological Emancipation Movement are the preparatory stages of the May 4th patriotic movement. Without the new culture movement, there would be no May 4th patriotic movement. The May 4th Patriotic Movement is the inevitable development of the New Culture Movement. In the New Culture Movement, the main leading force is the bourgeois democrats, and Cai Yuanpei, Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao all belong to this type. However, with the transformation of the New Culture Movement into the May 4th patriotic political movement, the spread of socialism and the arrival of the proletariat on the historical stage, the proletariat gradually became the leading force of the China revolution. The main reason why we have different or vague understanding of the leaders of the May 4th Movement today is that we have not strictly distinguished the two development stages of the May 4th Movement. Substituting the May 4th patriotic political movement for the whole May 4th movement and excluding the New Culture Movement, we only admit that Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu are the leaders of the May 4th movement, but deny that Cai Yuanpei and Hu Shi are also the leaders of the May 4th movement. This method of cutting off the history of the May 4th Movement is bound to draw some wrong historical conclusions.
First, when evaluating historical figures, it is mainly for this reason that their later historical problems deny their early achievements and deny that Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu were the leaders of the May 4th Movement. Hu Shi was denied, mainly because he served as the ambassador of the Kuomintang government to the United States for four years during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period and became an official of the Kuomintang. In fact, Hu Shi was mainly a scholar all his life, engaged in cultural and academic work, and was an official of the Kuomintang for a short time. Besides, he was an official of the Kuomintang during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period. During his ambassadorial period, his main job was to help Latin China, publicize China's anti-Japanese achievements and make certain contributions to War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. This is not only not excessive, but also meritorious. Chen Duxiu's problem is more complicated, and the outstanding problems are right opportunism and Trotskyism. Of course, Chen also made mistakes, but these problems are also mixed with the "left" opportunism of the international producers' party. He became a scapegoat for the mistakes made by Producers International in guiding China's revolution and an important target of "Left" opportunists. In short, personal historical issues should be analyzed and evaluated realistically, and the evaluation of his life is in the early stage and the later stage is the later stage. You can't use subtraction, you can't use mistakes to offset work, and you can't work hard to offset mistakes. It is unscientific and undesirable to use later historical problems to offset Chen and Hu's great contribution and historical position in the May 4th Movement.
The first is to politicize historical issues. During the period when the ultra-left ideological trend and the "historical view of class struggle" prevailed, the bourgeoisie, capitalism and even democracy became the objects of opposition and attack. Cai Yuanpei and Hu Shi are representatives of the bourgeoisie. How can we identify them as the leaders of the May 4th Movement? Under the ultra-left trend of thought, history is regarded as a tool of class struggle, emphasizing that history should serve real politics. Therefore, history is only revolutionary and not scientific; Not academic, just political. Chen Duxiu's achievements during the May 4th Movement have also become a sensitive political issue. Anyone who correctly evaluates Chen Duxiu during the May 4th Movement will be called a "traitor" and politically overthrown. The ultra-left ideological trend doubts everything, overturns everything, denies history and engages in national nihilism. Not only did bourgeois representatives who made opportunistic mistakes fail to admit that they were the leaders of the May 4th Movement, but even Li Dazhao, the representative of the proletariat and the first Marxist in China, was labeled as a "Democrat" and denied that he was the leader of the May 4th Movement. The "historical view of class struggle" with class struggle as the key link is the bane of denying or not recognizing Cai, Chen, Hu and even Li Dazhao as the leaders of the May 4th Movement.