May Fourth Movement, The Interpretation Of History (1919-1949)

The May 4th Movement in 1919 will always be the historical topic debated and disputed endlessly by political leaders, intellectuals, and scholars. During this period from 1919 to 1949, the most active ideologies on Chinese political stage at that time: Communism, Three Principles of the People, Liberalism, construct each own cognitive modes. This dissertation tries to give a detailed comparison and a systematic pectination to the three chief ideologies, with an attempt to depict their shaping process projected back to the historical scene of the time and to sort out their evolving tracks, emerging historical conditions and influences brought about by their subject factors. It also attempts to restore the May 4th Movement back to the original, historical picture by means of portraying their intricate overlappings, interactions and recurrent hostalities and contending postures.Apart from the introduction and the conclusion, this dissertation consists of three chapters: they are Class Revolution, the Nationalist Revolution and Cultrual Enlightenment. These three chapters generalize and present different views on the May 4th Movement: views of the Chinese Communist Party, of the Guomindang and of liberal intellectuals.Chapter one reveals the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party's cognition on the May 4th Movement. In the later stage of the May 4th, The cognition of Chen Duxiou and Le Dazhao have declared the sprouting of the radical revolutional discourse. In the Great Revolution, the May 4th Movement is nailed down as the national revolution movement against imperialism and against warlordism, and as a part of the world revolution as well. Therefore, in Chinese revolutionary history the May 4th is vividly portrayed as the era-dividing point. After the breakup of the Communist Party and the Guomindang in 1927, the Communists begins to iterate the bourgeois nature of the May 4th Movement and to take it to serious task typically repesented by Qu Qioubai. But on the eve of the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the New Enlightenment movement emphasizes particularly on the cognition of the May 4th Movement from the perspective of new enlightenment, with an attempt to inherit critically the enlightening spirit of the May 4th Movement. Since the 1930s, Mao Tsedong gives a systematic interpretation of the May 4th Movement, centered on the argumentation that the May 4th Movement is the outset of the new democratic revolution. Through the further argumentation and exertion of the Communist theorists and historians, the intergrated cognative mode with historical determinism ultimately constructs.Chapter two reviews the interpretation and evolution of Guomindang's perspective on the May 4th Movement. Sun Yat-sen establishes the contradictory attitude of members of Guomindang towards the May 4th Movement. He affirms the active effect on promoteing people's disillusion, but he also perceives the potential threat of liberalism and of denial attitude to the tradition to the revolution. Comaratively, Sun's adherents , such as Zhu Zhixin, Dai Jitao and etc., utter more passionate courtesy and praises. During the period of the cooperation between the CCP and the Guomindang, members of Guomindang also ascertain...