A Bitter Revolution

1. China’s Struggle with the Modern World A Bitter Revolution

2. The Making of a New China • Description of the May Fourth Incident • Youth • Internationalism • Violence

3. Why Was May Fourth Important? • The May Fourth Incident in Communist Historiography – Dominant Narrative – Reaction against Confucianism • Chow Tse-tsung’sThe May Fourth Movement - 1960 • The May Fourth Movement was actually a combined intellectual and socio-political movement to achieve national independence, the emancipation of the individual, and a just society by the modernization of China. • Lin Yu-sheng’sThe Crisis of Chinese Consciousness – 1979 – Uncompromising moralism originated in Confucianism. • Vera Schwarcz’sThe Chinese Enlightenment 1986 – Tensions between radicals and a younger generations willing to adapt rather than reject China’s past and save the present • RanaMitter – A Bitter Revolution - the possibilities of urban ideas - 2004

4. The Fall of the Chinese Empire • Qing Empire – 1644-1911 • Dismissed British – 1793 • Opium War – 1839-1842 – Ended with humiliating treaty of Nanjing • Taiping Rebellion – 1856-1864 – Hong Xiuquan • Sino-Japanese War – 1894-1895 • One hundred days of reform – 1898 – Guangxu Emperor • Boxer Uprising – 1900 • New Government (Xinzheng) - 1902

5. Uneasy Birth: The Chinese Republic • Chinese Republic • Overthrow of Puyi – the last emperor -1911 • Nationalist led by Sun Yatsen overthrown by Yuan Shikai – 1912 • Twenty-One demands – 1915 • Yuan Shikai dies and nation is divided among warlords – 1916 • Treaty of Versailles and May 4th Movement Incident – 1919 • Communists and Nationalists unite forces – 1923 • Massacre of Chinese Communists in Shanghai – 1927 • Chiang Kaishek founds national government in Nanking - 1928

6. Beijing, Shanghai, and the May Fourth Generation • The world the Great War had made was part of China’s Republican experience, for Chinese as well as foreigners. From the White Russians in exile in Shanghai from the Soviet government brought to power by the collapse of the Czarist empire to the associations of Chinese labor veterans of the European front, the world of war came to China just as China had to the war. The May Fourth era itself was part of that changed world. It was in China’s cities where the new thinking developed, and in particular in Beijing and Shanghai.

7. Beijing: Intellectual Centre of the Movement • “Few cities in China in the 1920s looked so traditional and Chinese and at the same time harboured the essentials of modern and Western urban life” David Strand • Liberal atmosphere of Beijing University allowed intellectual life to flourish • Casual attitude and free love • Xiong (ferocious), Song (slack-off), and Kong (empty)

8. Shanghai: China’s Modern Challenge • Politically tolerant environment • “Shanghai’s a big place, not like where we come from. Lots of people with plenty of money. It’ll be easy making a living there.” – Ding Ling • May Thirtieth Movement – 1925 – Imperialism • Racism • Cosmopolitanism • Shanghai University – radical – St. John’s University – local elite

9. People: The May Fourth Generation • ZouTaofen (1895-1944) http://app1.chinadaily.com.cn/star/2003/0130/cu18-2.html • Lu Xun (1881-1936) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Xun • Ding Ling (1905-1986) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_Ling • Du Zhongyuan (1898-1944) http://www.stx.ox.ac.uk/about/publications/record/21/college_seminar_rana_mitter

10. Subcultures • Leftist Radicals • Chen Duxiu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Duxiu • Li Dazhao http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Dazhao • Mao Zedong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong • Hu Shi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Shi • Writers of Fiction • Lu Xun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu_Xun • Ding Ling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ding_Ling • Xu Zhimo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Zhimo • Guo Morou http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guo_moruo • Mao Dun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Dun