The Spread And Influence Of Mutual Aid In Modern China

Mutual Aid was spread into China by the first Anarchists during Late Qing, but it had great influence on Chinese society at May Fourth Age as an independent ideological trend. Because it wasn't paid much attention in recent academia, this article retrospected its spreading process and specific sitution by studying contemporary magazines, newspapers and the authers with several lists. The theory initiated mutual aid and coorperation and opposed struggle, which made many intellectuals regard it as criticism to Darvinism, revision and complement as well. They hated general laws of "superior succeed and inferior fail" , "the weak being at the mercy of the strong-law of the jungles" , then and accepted mutual aid as the creed of social progress, human ethics and cultivation of moral characters. Greatly affected by the theory, editors of New Century devoted themselves to morality construction of mankind and the practice of mutual aid. The important members of Tian Yi, such as Liu Shipei, Zhang Taiyan also praised highly of the essence of mutual aid.People did not set off a movement to mull over utilitarianism and strong power until the First World War which led to unbelievable disasters. Then they put their spearhead on its final theory—Darvinism. Mutual aid occupied some position of struggle theory in people' s minds vacillated by the war just at that time. In China, many kinds of magazines and newspapers fell over to report this trend, groups or...