Zheng Shiqu, "Encourage the Broad Masses of Youth"

Zheng Shiqu, “Encourage the Broad Masses of Youth to Work Tirelessly for National Rejuvenation”[1]

Introduction and translation by David Ownby

Introduction

Today is the hundred-year anniversary of the beginning of the May Fourth movement, long seen as a fundamental turning point in modern Chinese history.  On May 4, 1919, students poured out of universities in Beijing, Shanghai, and other major cities in protest of China’s betrayal at the Versailles Conference marking the end of World War One. China had joined the allies over the course of the Great War in hopes of seeing Wilsonian principles of self-determination applied in China.  Instead, in a corrupt expression of great power politics, Japan took Germany’s place in East Asia and China’s weakness continued.  More broadly, as Jeffrey Wasserstrom points out today in his incisive piece in the New York Times, Chinese students rose up against the corruption and incompetence of their leaders, and their anger inspired a much longer iconoclastic effort to rethink China and the West, art and politics.  Among other things, this effort led to the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921.

A century later, the CCP is stronger than ever, but remains wary of anniversaries that celebrate youth, activism and revolution.  Since the beginning of the Xi Jinping era, the regime has attempted to reimpose ideological discipline throughout the educational system and particularly on university campuses.  Professors are enjoined to toe the line; Marxist students were arrested at Peking University on the 125th anniversary of the birth of Mao Zedong.   More recently, the Xu Zhangrun 许章润 (b. 1962) affair—and reaction to it—have focused attention on Tsinghua University’s acquiescence in efforts to muzzle Xu, a legal scholar who dared criticize Xi in print in the summer of 2018. Geremie Barmé’s brilliant series on the Xu affair documents official interventions, which have included closing off access to a stele, located on the Tsinghua campus, commemorating Wang Guowei 王国维 (1877-1927), a late-Qing and Republican-period scholar celebrated for his “unfettered spirit and independent mind,” qualities associated both with the May Fourth and with righteous scholars like Xu Zhangrun.   

In keeping with our mission, Reading the China Dream’s modest contribution to the celebration of the May Fourth centenary is a translation of an editorial in the online version of the People’s Daily by an establishment intellectual, Zheng Shiqu 郑师渠 (b. 1946).    Surely retired by now, Zheng served as history professor, Party secretary, and administrator at Beijing Normal University since graduating from that university’s history department in 1970.  His academic specialty is the intellectual history of China, and many of his books are found in the libraries of Western universities with important Chinese-language collections. That said, I have no idea of his intellectual stature or influence within China.

In the years prior to Xi Jinping’s ascent to power, historians and other intellectuals in China have reassessed the place and value of the May Fourth movement as part of their rethinking of China’s past, present, and future.  Some of this rethinking can be found on our site in essays by Xu Jilin, Gao Quanxi, Chen Ming, and Jiang Qing.  A more systematic appraisal may be found in the current issue of Twentieth-Century China (44.2, May 2019), which contains essays on the subject by Q. Edward Wang, Julia Strauss, Yu-Pei Kuo and Peter Zarrow, among others.  An exhaustive discussion of this reappraisal would take us deeper into the weeds than would be wise in this introduction.  Suffice it to say that alongside historical probing of periodizations and definitions (“many themes previously identified as beginning in the May Fourth period in fact can be traced back to late Qing times”) we also find polemical recastings of the fundamental importance of the May Fourth (“the May Fourth led us astray by focusing on abstractions such as individual and class instead of China’s concrete situation”).  In sum, rethinking the May Fourth was part of the larger richness of Chinese thought in the period prior to the Xi Jinping era.

This richness is largely absent from Zheng Shiqu’s text.  This is, of course, a People’s Daily editorial, and limitations of length and tone apply.  There are nods here and there to what historians have been up to; otherwise, why call on Zheng?  But most of Zheng’s efforts are deployed to reaffirm the traditional historiography which links the May Fourth to the CCP and hence to New China, and to thank China’s youth for having the wisdom to trust in the leadership of the CCP.  In Zheng’s sadly familiar style (between you and me, Google Translate pretty much has his number):

"The May Fourth movement was a great patriotic revolutionary movement initiated by the Chinese people to achieve national rejuvenation after the repeated invasions and abuse following the Opium War. Today, the best way to commemorate the May Fourth movement is to work hard under the leadership of the Communist Party of China to promote the current historical development and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation."

No need for demonstrations and iconoclasm, thank you very much.  We’ve got it covered.  Xi Jinping is invoked frequently (as is Mao), and the overall goal of Zheng’s piece is clearly to secure May Fourth’s place in China’s new orthodoxy, Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. 

Which poses the question:  Must revolution always end in boilerplate?

Translation

1

This is the hundred-year anniversary of the May Fourth movement.  As we look back on history, and toward the future, from the historical moment of “China’s socialism with special characteristics” entering a new era, we are fiercely proud of this great patriotic movement and deeply moved that we can comfort our forbearers by noting that the poor and weak China of that era, along with the suffering that poverty and weakness occasioned, are gone and will never return.  Today, we are closer than at any other period to achieving the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.  At the fourteenth collective study session of the Politburo of the CCP [held on April 19, 2019], Comrade Xi Jinping emphasized that we should strengthen research on the May Fourth movement and the May Fourth spirit, and encourage the great body of young people to work tirelessly for national rejuvenation.[2]  The best way to remember May Fourth is to continue to push forward the cause of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people.

The May Fourth movement was a great patriotic revolutionary movement initiated by the Chinese people to achieve national rejuvenation after the repeated invasions and abuse following the Opium War. Today, the best way to commemorate the May Fourth movement is to work hard under the leadership of the Communist Party of China to promote the current historical development and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Comrade Xi Jinping pointed out that the May Fourth movement that exploded a century ago was a great patriotic revolutionary movement, thoroughly anti-imperialist and anti-feudal, led by a vanguard of advanced intellectual youth and with the participation of the broad body of the masses.  The May Fourth movement is a landmark event in the modern and contemporary history of China. The spirit of the May Fourth movement is that of patriotism, progress, democracy, and science. This spirit is a precious value created by the May Fourth movement.

The reason that the May Fourth movement became a landmark event in modern and contemporary Chinese history is because, on the one hand, it marked the end of a period following the Opium War, when the struggle of countless noble souls could not save the nation from its peril, and when the old democratic revolution of the bourgeoisie had run its course; on the other hand, the May Fourth marks the opening act of the new democratic revolution led by the proletariat.  The May Fourth movement laid the groundwork for the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party in terms of ideas and personnel, and was an earth-shaking event “after which China changed direction.”

The May Fourth movement was a product of the high tide of Chinese patriotism, of the New Culture movement’s promotion of national thought liberation, and of China’s social development.  Liang Qichao 梁启超 (1873-1929) was very clear on the relationship between the May Fourth movement and the New Culture movement :  “The current political movement if fact takes its energy from a cultural movement, thus its origins and outcome were different, which is a necessary result of cause and effect.”  Mao Zedong astutely identified the social base of the May Fourth movement:  the birth and development of new social forces during that period leading to the emergence of a great new coalition in China’s anti-imperialist, anti-feudal bourgeois-democratic revolution, a coalition composed of the Chinese working class, the student masses, and the newly risen democratic capitalist class.

The great historical significance manifested by the May Fourth movement illustrates that only when the student movement is integrated into the current of the national rejuvenation, and accepts correct leadership, can it have a bright future.  The reason the May Fourth achieved what it did, in the final analysis, is because it went beyond a simple student movement and received the support of workers and merchants, the working class actively participating in this patriotic revolutionary movement.  History since the May Fourth also illustrates that the student movement will only chart a correct course and enjoy a great future under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and by consciously devoting itself to the main current of the Chinese revolution.  The Chinese Communist Party has always valued guiding students and relying on students.  On the twentieth anniversary of the May Fourth movement, Mao Zedong published “The Direction of the Youth Movement 青年运动的方向,” calling on youth to organize the people of the entire nation to struggle to defeat the Japanese invaders and establish New China.  This not only reflects our party’s expectations for the youth movement, but also our party’s strong leadership of the youth movement.

2

In a broad sense, the May Fourth movement was a movement for a new culture, but this cultural movement was different before and after the pivotal date of May 4, 1919.  The earlier period was one of reflection on Chinese traditional culture, and was mainly characterized by the idea of “using Western learning to oppose Chinese learning.”  The latter period saw both a reflection on Western culture as well as the beginnings of a search to develop a new national culture.  After the May Fourth movement, socialist thought flourished in China, and Marxism spread rapidly in the intellectual world. When they discovered Marxism, the Chinese people’s thought moved from active to passive.

In the early twentieth century, at the same moment that some of our fellow compatriots embraced the idea of “opposing Chinese learning with Western learning,” there also occurred a crisis in Western culture brought on by the First World War.  “Since European culture is in crisis, what should be the future direction of China’s new culture movement?” was the question people asked themselves at the time.  Broadly speaking, there were two main responses.  One was that represented by Liang Qichao and people like him, who reflected on modern thought through the ideas of figures like Nietzsche and Bergson, and argued that the reason that modern China’s study of the West had not worked was because the Western culture they were imitating had long been in a state of “illness,” which meant that the promotion of “the awakening of the Chinese people” would require the development of a new national culture following  a rethinking of Chinese and Western culture.  The second response, of which Li Dazhao 李大钊 (1889-1927) was a representative example, promoted Marxism.  Just as Mao Zedong once argued, “Imperialism’s invasion of China destroyed the Chinese people’s dream of studying the West.  It’s strange.  Why are teachers always invading their students?  Chinese learned a lot from the West, but couldn’t make it work, the ideals were never realized…The national situation got worse day after day, creating an environment in which people could not live.  This produced, increased, and developed doubts.”  “The sound of the cannon fire of the October Revolution brought us Marxism-Leninism.”  The Chinese people then “took Russia as their teacher,” which completely changed the face of the Chinese revolution.  There is a shared point in both responses:  a critical attitude toward Western capitalism.  Spurred on by the influence of Li Dazhao and company and by the general trends of the time, a thought revolution sprang up in China, promoting the study and diffusion of Marxism, and Marxism gradually began to develop a guiding role in the domains of thought and culture.  Abandoning the capitalist plan to save the country and taking the Marxist path was a historic choice made by many progressive figures at the time.  This is the most basic characteristic of the new cultural movement after the May Fourth Movement.

In the New Culture movement that followed on the May Fourth movement, our countrymen overcame the blind worship of Western culture that had characterized the earlier period, and entered a new period of seeking to develop a new national culture.  In other words, at the time, people had established a new historical turning point on the basis of cultural awakening.  After the establishment of the CCP, we continued to use materialism as a thought weapon to think about the future fate of the country and the people, and maintained a scientific evaluation and attitude concerning Chinese traditional culture.  During the early period of the Anti-Japanese War, Mao Zedong pointed out:  “Today’s China developed out of historical China.  We are Marxist historicists, and should not break with history.  We should synthesize everything from Confucius to Sun Yat-sen, and accept this valuable heritage.  This will be an important aid in guiding the great struggle in which we are currently engaged.” At the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Central Committee [held at Yan’an between September 29 and November 6, 1938], our Party brought forth the important theoretical notion of the “sinification of Marxism,” and subsequently also proposed the idea of building a new democratic culture for the people that was scientific and mass-based.  Clearly, the awakening to the idea of reviving the national culture that emerged in the latter period of the New Culture movement finally became, through the unstinting efforts of the CCP, an organic, organized part of the great enterprise of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

3

The May Fourth movement was a great patriotic revolutionary movement initiated by the Chinese people to achieve national rejuvenation after the repeated invasions and abuse following the Opium War. Today, the best way to commemorate the May Fourth movement is to work hard under the leadership of the Communist Party of China to promote the current historical development and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Comrade Xi Jinping has pointed out:  “Observing China’s history is an important angle from which to observe today’s China.  If you do not understand China’s history and culture, especially China’s history and culture in the modern period, then it will be very difficult to fully grasp the situation of contemporary Chinese society, to fully grasp the burden and dreams of today’s Chinese people, and to fully grasp the path of development that the Chinese people have chosen.  The Chinese people are currently striving to realize the China Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and to achieve this must absorb the wisdom of historical China.”  The Chinese Communist Party was established after the May Fourth movement.  The Chinese Communist Party led the Chinese people to win the great victory of the new democratic revolution, established New China, established the basic socialist system, and achieved the most profound and greatest social change in Chinese history.   Since the period of reform and opening, socialism with Chinese characteristics has achieved a great leap in the creation, development, and perfection [of the economy].  Today, socialism with Chinese characteristics had entered a new period.  One hundred years ago, the Chinese people were desperate to save China, while today they are striving to carry out the realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.  China’s hundred-year history of standing up, getting rich and getting strong tells us that only socialism can save China, and that only socialism with Chinese characteristics can develop China.  Always adhering to the correct view of history, not forgetting our original intention, remembering our mission, and striving to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation make up the foundation for carrying forward the spirit of the May Fourth movement today.

The realization of the China Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will require pushing the new Chinese culture to greater heights.  Chinese culture is old and deep, but inevitably over the course of its history produced certain negative and backward things.  Criticisms of Chinese traditional culture during the New Culture movement were not without reason, but there were also simplistic denials of Chinese traditional culture, irrational, nihilistic efforts to extinguish the people.  China’s weakness and poverty in the modern era, which left China backward and vulnerable for long periods, created a situation in which modern Chinese people lack confidence in traditional Chinese culture.  Today, a hundred years after the May Fourth movement, times have changed, China’s overall national strength has greatly increased, and the revitalization of Chinese culture is on the rise.  We must firmly establish cultural self-confidence, carry out creative transformations and developments of China’s excellent traditional culture, develop socialist culture with Chinese characteristics, constantly push Chinese culture to new heights, enhance the pride and enthusiasm of being Chinese, and support national rejuvenation with cultural self-confidence.

Since the May Fourth movement, and under the leadership of the CCP, generation after generation of eager youths have written their own deeply affecting songs of youth in the current of their efforts to save China and to reawaken Chinese history.  The reason why generation after generation of young people have been able to contribute to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is , in the final analysis, because the great mass of youths, in different historical periods, consciously strove under the leadership of the CCP to realize the China Dream of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.  Struggling to realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is the current theme of the contemporary Chinese youth movement.  As Comrade Xi Jinping has stressed, “The best way for the broad mass of youths to commemorate May Fourth is, under the leadership of the CCP, to bravely strive with those marching into the future, breaking new ground, dedicating themselves, and together with all peoples of the country, with confidence, morality, knowledge and ability, take up their historical mission, so that the May Fourth spirit will shine forth in ways that are even more appealing to the needs of our times.
 
 
Notes

[1] 郑师渠, “激励广大青年为民族复兴不懈奋斗,” April 30, 2019 available at http://opinion.people.com.cn/n1/2019/0430/c1003-31058391.html.

​[2] http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2019-04/20/content_5384742.htm.