Response of Early Chinese Marxists around the May 4th Movement to Western Challenges
ZHU Qing-yue1, 2
1.School of Information, Huaibei Normal University, Huaibei, Anhui, 235000; 2.Institute of Knowledge and Value Sciences, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, 200234
Abstract:Meeting challenges from other social thoughts in different periods is one of the problem situations that need to be resolved in the practice of Marxism in China. For example, around the May 4th Movement, early Chinese Marxists responded positively to the challenges of the westernizers from various aspects: in historical conception, they responded with historical materialism to historical evolutionism and cultural determinism of the westernizers, providing preliminary answers to what were China’s problems and the root causes; in view of freedom, with socialist view of freedom they responded to western bourgeoisie’s liberalism, providing preliminary answers to how to solve China’s problems and where China should go at that time; in truth view, with Marxist conception of truth they responded to pragmatic theory of truth, providing preliminary answers to the question of whether Marxism is truth; in cultural view, with innovative fusion of Chinese and Western culture they responded to Western overall concept of culture and west-centered theory, providing preliminary answers to how to handle the relation between Chinese and Western culture and whether Marxism is needed as guidance in this regard. These responses not only delivered a clear message to the general public that resolving China’s problems (such as handling the relation between Chinese and Western culture, and the construction of social ideological pattern) needed Marxism and that Marxism had the ability and quality of solving Chinese problems, but also provided an indirect warning for the Chinese Marxists ever since that the practice of Marxism in China could not be easy or successful once and for all.
朱庆跃. 五四前后中国早期马克思主义者对西化派挑战的回应[J]. 《深圳大学学报》(人文社科版), 2016, 33(4): 6-7.
ZHU Qing-yue. Response of Early Chinese Marxists around the May 4th Movement to Western Challenges. , 2016, 33(4): 6-7.