Chen Wangdao And The Left Wing Cultural Movement

Chen Wangdao did not join the Left-wing League,nor did he participate in any left-wing organizations.However,during the rise of the left-wing cultural movement in China,he had close contacts with left-wing writers such as Lu Xun,Mao Dun,and Feng Xuefeng.Examining Chen Wangdao’s social activities around the 1930 s,it can be found that he has always participated in the social revolutionary movement in China in his own unique way.However,there is currently little research on the historical facts and topics related to Chen Wangdao and the left-wing cultural movement in the academic community.Starting from the revolutionary background around the 1930 s,this article explores the relationship between Chen Wangdao and the left-wing cultural movement.Firstly,during the period of revolutionary literature debate,Chen Wangdao devoted himself to the cultural publishing industry,founded the Dajiang Bookstore,and devoted himself to publishing the works of left-wing writers and advanced scientific and literary theories,making great contributions to the dissemination of left-wing culture;In the early 1930 s,the Kuomintang’s repression of the left-wing cultural community became increasingly severe.Chen Wangdao’s editorial editor,the semi monthly "Taibai",published a large number of left-wing literary and artistic creations,exposing the darkness of reality with combat essays,and opposing the "humorous" essays advocated by the "Analects of Confucius" such as Lin Yutang and Zhou Zuoren.Secondly,Chen Wangdao has made certain efforts to translate and introduce Marxist literary theory.He not only personally translated a large number of Marxist literary theories,but also did some organizational work in theoretical translation.He edited and translated two sets of books on Marxist literary theory.Influenced by the historical and cultural environment,Chen Wangdao’s choice of translation of Marxist literary theories is mainly the interpretive texts of Marxist literary theories by some Russian Soviet and Japanese theorists.However,it can be seen from these texts that Chen Wangdao attaches great importance to Soviet literary theories and policies,and that his theoretical translation also has a clear feature of pursuing practical functions.Chen Wangdao creatively absorbed Bogdanov’s "organization theory" and proposed the idea of building a popular language to "organize" the masses.Finally,in order to promote the popular movement of literature and art and counter the classical Chinese retro argument,Chen Wangdao joined forces with Shanghai cultural circles to launch the popular language movement,and published a large number of theoretical articles,forming a complete set of popular language construction theories.Due to different positions,Chen Wangdao’s views on popular language are significantly different from those of other left-wing writers.Left-wing intellectuals consider language issues from a political standpoint,comprehensively denying the May 4th vernacular,while Chen Wangdao holds a more open language concept from a scholar’s standpoint,and has a more gentle and accessible attitude towards vernacular.