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Modernization Lesson 4: The May Fourth Movement

Contents of this fileNotes on implementing the lesson

Document A: The May Fourth Movement noted 90 years later (Original)

Document B: “My Experience with the May Fourth Movement” (Original)

Document C: “Call to Youth” (Original)

Document D: Call for a “Literary Revolution” (Original)

Document E: The Chinese Renaissance (Original)

Document F: An assessment of the May Fourth Movement (Original)

Document G: An assessment of the May Fourth Movement (Original)

Sources

Background notes for teachers on the May Fourth Movement

Notes on implementing the lesson

Students should complete Contextualization Lessons 1 and 2 and Modernization Lessons 1, 2 and 3 before beginning this lesson. Teachers can review the file “1 Introduction to the Unit” for details on how this lesson fits into the unit “China: The Struggle for Modernization.”

Like all lessons in this unit, this lesson implements the Reading Like a Historian pedagogy developed by the Stanford History Education Group. Teachers should be familiar with the concepts of sourcing, contextualizing, close reading, and corroborating. Further information is available at sheg.stanford.edu/?q=node/45.

The ultimate goal of this lesson is for students to identify the goals of the May Fourth Movement so that by the end of the unit they can trace the evolution of the modernization process between 1860 and 2000. Because this topic is not well covered in most high school textbooks, notice that a section titled “Background notes for teachers on the May Fourth Movement” is included at the end of this file.

Two worksheets are provided to guide students through the analysis of the documents below:

Document Analysis Worksheet I, which should be completed separately for Documents A through E, emphasizes sourcing, close reading, and contextualizing. Close reading at this point should focus on comprehension of the information in each document. Students should read critically to identify

CHINESE HISTORY THROUGH CHINESE EYES — The Struggle for Modernization: Lesson 4

points where they need additional information to understand the document. They then practice contextualization by looking for that information in the textbook and the outline of Chinese history provided in the preceding Contextualization lesson.

Document Analysis Worksheet II is designed to compile information from Documents A through E. It emphasizes close reading and corroborating. At this point close reading should focus on information in Documents A through E that reveals the goals of the May Fourth Movement. Such information should be recorded on the chart.

Questions 1 and 2 below the chart on Document Analysis Worksheet II require students to corroborate information from Documents A through E.

Question 3 requires students to read Documents F and G, which are secondary sources that provide interpretations that historians have made of documents similar to those the students have just analyzed. Students should read these professional interpretations only after they have drawn some conclusions of their own by answering Questions 1 and 2.

Answer keys are provided for all worksheets.

To prepare students for the essay at the end of the unit, ask them to compare the leadership, goals, and outcome of the May Fourth Movement with those of the previous efforts to modernize. How has the process evolved from one effort to the next?

See the file “1 Introduction to the Unit” for information on the spelling of Chinese names and other ways in which the student documents have been edited.

The four Reading Like a Historian skills require students to think in ways that are probably new for them in history classes. Teachers should not be discouraged by student resistance to these higher expectations, and teachers should not be surprised if even at the end of the unit students continue to require support and encouragement to practice the skills. However, if teachers and students are diligent about following the procedures outlined in this series of lessons, by the end of the unit they should make substantial progress in internalizing these important historical thinking skills.


Document A: The May Fourth Movement noted 90 years later (Original)

The May Fourth Movement is one of the most important cultural and political movements in modern Chinese history. At the end of the First World War, in 1918, China was convinced it would be able to reclaim the territories occupied by the Germans in present-day Shandong Province. After all, it had fought along with the Allies. However, it was not to be. The [Chinese] warlord government of the day had secretly struck a deal with the Japanese, offering the German colonies in return for financial support. The Allies, on the other hand, acknowledged Japan’s territorial claims in China. When it became known in China in April 1919 that the negotiations over the Treaty of Versailles would not honor China’s claims, it gave rise to the movement.

On May 4, 1919, thousands of college students took to the street, calling for abrogation of this unequal pact, a boycott of Japanese goods and the resignations of traitorous officials. Armies were sent to quell the protest, and more than 30 students were arrested, but more strikes by students and workers popped up across the nation in the following weeks. Under pressure from the public, several officials stepped down, including President Xu Shichang. The Chinese delegation didn’t sign the Treaty of Versailles.

Source: Published May 2010 in China Today, an English-language, government-sponsored magazine in China.


Document B: “My Experience with the May Fourth Movement” (Original)

I was a sixteen-year-old student at the First Normal School for Women in Tianjin when the May Fourth Movement began in 1919. A period of 30 years has elapsed. Many memories, once fresh and vivid, have been so diluted by the passage of time that they are now blurred and obscure …

On May 4, 1919, the students in Beijing staged a massive demonstration, demanding the punishment of traitors and the rejection of the Versailles Peace Treaty. In a moment of extreme anger, they burned down Chaochia Lu [the home of the Chinese foreign minister] and beat up many traitors. The news of this demonstration reached Tianjin the next day, shaking the façade of complacency to its very foundation. … On May 7 the Tianjin students staged a demonstration of their own … we also called for the abolition of the Twenty-one Demands [made by Japan in 1915], the return of Qingdao [a city the Japanese had occupied], the boycott of Japanese goods, the use of Chinese goods only, and, most important of all, “We are determined that we shall not be slaves to any foreigners in our own country.” …

Keep in mind that the May Fourth Movement occurred at the end of World War I when new cultures and new ideas, plus the knowledge of the successful October Revolution in Russia, made a deep impression on every youth in China. …

… our own intuition told us that a patriotic movement, to be effective, had to be more than just a students’ movement and that we had to awaken all of our brethren for the attainment of a common goal. … Many oratorical teams were organized, and I was elected captain of the speakers for the Association of Patriotic Women as well as head of the oratorical division for the Association of Tianjin Students. My duty was to provide speakers in differently areas on a regular basis.

At the beginning we, as female students, did not enjoy the same freedom of movement as our male counterparts, insofar as our speaking tours were concerned. According to the feudal custom of China, women were not supposed to make speeches in the street; we, therefore, had to do our work indoors. We gave speeches in such places as libraries and


participated in scheduled debates, all inside a hall or a room. The audience was large and responsive in each of these meetings …

Besides making speeches, we also conducted house-to-house visits which often took us to more remote areas of the city and also to the slums. Some of the families we visited received us warmly, while others slammed their doors in our faces before we could utter a single word. … The Association of Tianjin Students published a journal which started as a half-weekly but became a daily shortly afterwards. … it had a circulation of 20,000 – quite an achievement at that time. …

In the wake of the May Fourth Movement came the feminist movement which was in fact one of its democratic extensions. Among the demands we raised at that time were sexual equality, abolition of arranged marriage, social activities open to women, freedom of romantic love and marriage, universities open to women students, and employment of women in government institutions. The first step we took toward sexual equality was to merge the associations of male and female students in Tianjin to form a new organization which students of both sexes could join. …

As pioneers in the feminist movement who had had the rare opportunity to work side by side with men, we female students in the merged association were conscious of the example we had to set so that no man in the future could deny women the opportunity to work on the ground of alleged incompetence. In short, we worked doubly hard. Fortunately, for us, the male students in the association, having been imbued with the new thought of the West, were ready to accept us as equals and judged us according to our performance rather than our sex. Each department, division, or committee was always headed by two chairpersons, one male and one female, and the female chairperson had as much authority as her male counterpart.

Source: Originally written in 1949 by Deng Yingchao, who later married Zhou Enlai, who was premier of the People’s Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976.


Document C: “Call to Youth” (Original)

The Chinese compliment others by saying, “He acts like an old man although still young.” Englishmen and Americans encourage one another by saying, “Keep young while growing old.” Such is one respect in which the different ways of thought of the East and West are manifested. Youth is like early spring, like the rising sun, like trees and grass in bud, like a newly sharpened blade. It is the most valuable period of life. …

Alas! Do these words really fit the youth of our country? I have seen that, out of every ten youths who are young in age, five are old in physique; and out of every ten who are young in both age and physique, nine are old in mentality. … I carefully propose the following six principles, and hope you will give them your calm consideration.

1. Be independent, not servile. … The history of modern Europe is commonly referred to as a “history of emancipation”: the destruction of monarchical power aimed at political emancipation; the denial of Church authority aimed at religious emancipation; the rise of the theory of equal property aimed at economic emancipation; and the suffragist movement aimed at emancipation from male authority. …

2. Be progressive, not conservative. … it is plain that those races that cling to antiquated ways are declining, or disappearing, day by day, and the peoples who seek progress and advancement are just beginning to ascend in power and strength. … All our traditional ethics, law, scholarship, rites and customs are survivals of feudalism. When compared with the achievement of the white race, there is a difference of a thousand years in thought, although we live in the same period.

3. Be aggressive, not retiring. … Stated in kindly terms, retirement is an action of the superior man in order to get away from the vulgar world. Stated in hostile terms, it is a phenomenon of the weak who are unable to struggle for survival. … Alas! The war steeds of Europe are intruding into your house. Where can you quietly repose under a white cloud?

4. Be cosmopolitan, not isolationist. … When a nation is thrown into the currents of the world, traditionalists will certainly hasten the day of its fall, but those capable of change will take this opportunity to compete and


progress. … When its citizens lack knowledge of the world, how can a nation expect to survive in it?

5. Be utilitarian, not formalistic. … That which brings no benefit to the practical life of an individual or of society is all empty formalism and the stuff of cheats. And even though it were bequeathed to us by our ancestors, taught by the sages, advocated by the government and worshiped by society, the stuff of cheats is still not worth one cent.

6. Be scientific, not imaginative. … The contribution of the growth of science to the supremacy of modern Europe over other races is not less than that of the theory of the rights of man. … Our scholars do not know science, therefore they borrow the yin-yang school’s notions of auspicious signs and of the five elements to confuse the world and cheat the people, and the idea of feng shui to beg for miracles from dry skeletons (spirits).

Source: Chen Duxiu, founder and editor of New Youth magazine, faculty member of Beijing University, and a founder of the Chinese Communist Party. Originally published in New Youth magazine in 1915.


Document D: Call for a “Literary Revolution” (Original)

I am willing to be the enemy of the nation’s scholars and raise high the banner of the “Army of Literary Revolution,” in vocal support of my friend [Hu Shi]. On the banner will be written large the three great ideological tenets of our revolutionary army: (1) Down with the ornate, sycophantic literature of the aristocracy; up with the plain, expressive literature of the people! (2) Down with stale, pompous classical literature; up with fresh, sincere realist literature! (3) Down with obscure, abstruse eremitic literature; up with comprehensible, popularized social literature!

Source: Chen Duxiu, founder and editor of New Youth magazine, faculty member of Beijing University, and a founder of the Chinese Communist Party. Originally published in New Youth magazine in February 1917.

Document E: The Chinese Renaissance (Original)

Its leaders know what they want, and they know what they must destroy in order to achieve what they want. They want a new language, a new literature, a new outlook on life and society, and a new scholarship. They want a new language, not only as an effective instrumentality for popular education, but also as the effective medium for the development of the literature of a new China. They want a literature that shall be written in the living tongue of a living people and shall be capable of expressing the real feelings, thoughts, inspirations, and aspirations of a growing nation. They want to instill into the people a new outlook on life which shall free them from the shackles of tradition and make them feel at home in the new world and its new civilization. They want a new scholarship which shall not only enable us to understand intelligently the cultural heritage of the past, but also prepare us for active participation in the work of research in the modern sciences. …

The problem was first seen by all early reformers as the problem of finding a suitable language which could serve as an effective means of educating the vast millions of children and of illiterate adults. They admitted that the classical language – which was difficult to write and to learn, and for thousands of years incapable of being spoken or verbally understood – was not suited for the education of children and the masses. … All the school texts, from the primary grades to the university, were written in this dead language; and teaching in the primary schools consisted chiefly in reading


and memorizing the texts which had to be explained, word for word, in the local dialects of the pupils. When European literature began to be translated into Chinese, the translations were all in this classical language; and it was a tremendous task and exceedingly amusing to read the comic figures in the novels of Charles Dickens talking in the dead language of two thousand years ago! …

In the course of a few years, the literary revolution had succeeded in giving to the people a national language, and had brought about a new age of literary expression. The political parties soon saw the utility of this new linguistic instrument, and adopted it for their weeklies and monthlies. The publishing houses, which at first hesitated to accept books written in the vulgar language, soon found them to sell far better than those in the classical style, and became enthusiastic over the new movement. Many new small book companies sprang up and published nothing but books and periodicals written in the national language. By 1919 and 1920 the vulgar tongue of the people had assumed the more respectable name of the “National Language of China.” And in 1920 the Ministry of Education – in a reactionary government – reluctantly proclaimed an order that, from the fall of the next year, the textbooks for the first two grades in the primary schools were to be written in the national language. In 1922 all the elementary and secondary textbooks were ordered to be rewritten in the national language.

Source: Hu Shi, a professor at Beijing University and an intellectual leader during the May Fourth Movement. This account was written in the early 1930s.


Chen Duxiu (left) and Hu Shi

Document F: An assessment of the May Fourth Movement (Original)

The May 4th Movement was at once a patriotic political movement and a new cultural movement. The former began from May 4 to June 28 [1919], the latter from September 1915, when Chen Duxiu published the first issue of New Youth magazine, to July, 1921, when the Chinese Communist Party was founded … the rising patriotism also pushed forward the cultural movement, transforming it from a cultural movement characteristic of old democracy into one characteristic of new democracy with the dissemination of Marxism as its main current.

The May 4th Movement gave the Chinese people a new awakening. … philosophic theories of the West poured into China and became widespread … one year after the May 4th Movement over 400 new publications came out. … New mass organizations were set up by the hundreds. Both organizations and publications took up the tasks of popularizing new ideologies and researching the issues of reforming society, forming a widespread and vigorous ideological trend. … Among them the most widespread and popular were Marxism, pragmatism, guild socialism, new village and workstudy mutual help doctrines, as well as anarchism.

Source: Historian Bai Shouyi, writing in An Outline History of China, published in 2008 by the Foreign Language Press in Beijing (p. 480-481).

Document G: An assessment of the May Fourth Movement (Original)

… the May Fourth Movement was essentially a socio-political-intellectual revolution aimed at achieving national independence, individual emancipation, and creation of a new culture through a critical and scientific re-evaluation of the national heritage and selected acceptance of foreign civilization. …

… three main achievements are indisputable. First, the literary revolution led to the establishment of the Plain Language in 1920 and the rise of a new literature in vernacular style …

Second, the influx of diverse foreign ideas and ideologies caused the emergence of two opposing views on social reconstruction and national regeneration: the pragmatic, evolutionary method expounded by Hu Shi


and later partially accepted by the Nationalist Party; and the Marxist revolutionary approach adopted by the Chinese Communist Party. The contemporary history of China from 1921 onward is primarily a story of the struggle between these two parties and their different approaches.

Third, the intensification of nationalism stimulated the rise of a Young China, extremely sensitive to its perilous position in the modern world and jealous of guiding its own destiny. … The result was a violent reaction against foreign imperialism and an intense drive to end the unequal treaties.

Source: Historian Immanuel C. Y. Hsü, writing in The Rise of Modern China (6th ed.), published in 2000 by Oxford University Press (p. 511). Photo: The art and images of China, www.ibiblio.org/chineseart.


SourcesBai, Shouyi. (2008). An Outline History of China. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

Document F: Pages 480-481.

Chen, Duxiu. (1982). Call to Youth. In Ssu-yü Teng and John K. Fairbank (Eds.). China’s Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839-1923. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Originally published in 1915.

Document C: Pages 240-245.

Chen, Duxiu. (1996). On literary revolution. In Kirk A Denton (Ed.). Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893-1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Pages 140-145. Originally published February 1917.

Document D: Page 141.

Hsü, Immanuel C. Y. (2000). The Rise of Modern China (6th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Document G: Page 511.

Hu, Shi. (1934). The Chinese Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Downloaded May 25, 2011, from http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~mrl/HuShih/ChineseRenaissance.html

Document E.

Teng Ying-ch’ao [Deng, Yingchao]. (1978). My Experience with the May Fourth Movement. In Dun J. Li (Ed. and Trans.). Modern China: From Mandarin to Commissar. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Pages 153-162. Originally published in 1949.

Document B: Pages 153-160.

This Month in History. (2010). China Today, 59(5), 6. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete, May 24, 2011.

Document A

Wertz, Richard R. (n.d.) Chen Duxiu. The art and images of China. Retrieved June 18, 2011, from http://www.ibiblio.org/chineseart/contents/peop/c05s01p01.htm?image=1

Photograph in Document E


Background notes for teachers on the May Fourth Movement

Although the May Fourth Movement has not featured prominently in traditional high

school surveys of Chinese history in the United States, it receives considerable

attention from Chinese historians. The movement shaped the historical context for the

founding of the Communist Party in 1921, and one of the party founders, Chen Duxiu

(Documents C and D), was prominent in the intellectual leadership of the May Fourth

Movement. Thus students in China today are taught that the movement “marked the

beginning of China’s new democratic revolution” (“Teaching objectives of China’s

modern and contemporary history basic knowledge”). Historian Immanuel C. Y. Hsü

clarifies the terminology related to the movement:

This intellectual revolution, taking place somewhere between 1917 and 1923,

hailed a New Cultural Movement which has sometimes been described, perhaps

exaggeratedly, as a “Chinese Renaissance.” A high point in this turbulent period

was the gigantic student demonstration in Peking [Beijing] on May 4, 1919, which

quickly evoked nationwide response. Hence this period is also commonly known

as that of the May Fourth Movement (Hsü, 2000, p. 494)

Hsü identifies four conditions that contributed to the emergence of the movement

at this point in history:

The end of dynastic rule created new space for consideration of reforms beyond

the transformation of government institutions while the failure of the 1911

Revolution to establish constitutional democracy encouraged intellectuals to seek

deeper solutions in China’s effort to modernize.

European and American preoccupation with World War I mitigated their

interventions in China and provided the domestic Chinese economy with

opportunities for growth. This economic growth “gave rise to new merchant and

labor classes, which … were sensitive to China’s predicament under imperialism”

(Hsü, 2000, p. 495).

World War I, on the other hand, emboldened Japanese aggression against

China, which intensified nationalist sentiment within China.


The number of Chinese students studying abroad reached a critical mass. They

returned home with a greater understanding of western culture and history than

any previous generation of Chinese intellectuals.

Among the returned students, Hsü identifies three whose leadership in the May

Fourth Movement was especially important. Chen Duxiu (Documents C and D) founded

the influential New Youth magazine in 1915 before adopting Marxism and becoming a

founder of the Chinese Communist Party. Cai Yuanpei became chancellor of Beijing

University (a legacy of the 1898 Hundred Day Reforms) in 1916. Hsü says, “Under Cai’s

guidance, the Beida became an exciting institution of higher learning, with professors of

different political persuasions – liberals, radicals, socialists, anarchists, conservatives,

and reactionaries – composing the faculty” (Hsü, 2000, p. 499). It was during this time

that the young Mao Zedong worked in the university library. Hu Shi (Documents E) was

among the new faculty at Beijing University. He had spent seven years studying in the

United States, where John Dewey was a strong influence. “Under his aegis, ‘Mr.

Science’ and ‘Mr. Democracy’ became the catchwords of the age,” according to Hsü

(2000, p. 500).

The spark that converted intellectual fervor into a national movement was the

decision on April 28, 1919, at the Versailles conference to award Germany’s

concessions in China to Japan.

On May 4, several hundred returned students met [at Beijing University] to

discuss what they could do in this period of national crisis and humiliation. … It

was … resolved to stage a mass demonstration and to present petitions to the

foreign legations for transmittal to Paris. The demonstration was joined by large

groups of students from the thirteen universities and colleges in Beijing, swelling

the number to 5,000” (Hsü, 2000, p. 504).

The students burned the home of the Chinese foreign minister, and later a small

number were arrested. The arrests led to a call for a general student strike, which

spread to other cities and was joined by industrial workers and others all over the

country. The intellectual movement continued for some years, fueled in part John

Dewey’s two-year visit to China (1919-1921) and Bertrand Russell’s nine-month visit

(1920-1921). As noted above, the Chinese Communist Party, founded in 1921, is


among the legacies of the movement. Placing the movement in the larger historical

context of China’s efforts to modernize, Hsü writes:

The intellectual revolution of 1917-23 represents China’s third stage of response

to the Western impact. The first stage – the Self-strengthening Movement from

1861 to 1895 – saw superficial attempts at diplomatic and military modernization,

and the second – the era of reform and revolution from 1898 to 1912 – witnessed

the acceptance of Western political institutions. The intellectual awakening of

1917-23 marked a further shift away from the traditional Chinese base toward

complete Westernization. By 1920 China was very much a part of the modern

world (Hsü, 2000, p. 510).

SourceHsü, Immanuel C. Y. (2000). The Rise of Modern China (6th ed.). New York: Oxford

University Press.
