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From the May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution: Guo Moruo and the Chinese Path to Communism (review)

From the May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution: Guo Moruo and the Chinese Path to Communism... Reviews  217 within China itself and by China-born scholars, including many of the authors  here, has reinforced this isolation of Chinese politics from the rest of the field.  Increasingly, China is studied in much the same way that “Americanists” in U.S.  universities study American politics, namely without any comparative grounding.  As the editors note, “the Chinese case does not have a large impact on the field”  (p. 5). Given the other challenges, this suggests a need for some strategy of research  that deals with the tradeoffs of cross-national research.e  Th  authors are probably  divided on this issue. However, the final word of the volume goes to Kenneth  Lieberthal, who issues a battle cry for the old sinology of area studies, qualitative  research, middle- or low-level theories, and policy relevance. His stand is  unfortunate because it tends to bury the debate rather than highlight it. Indeed,  Lieberthal’s own chapter shows the costs of sinology’s isolation. He cites a claim  that “entrepreneurs in China do not, as was the case in modern Western history,  seek to challenge the regime” (p. 276) to justify the singular focus on China. Yet  this claim itself is a comparative one, and notably one that is not widely accepted  any longer among students of Western democratic history. More widely, scholars  of Latin American politics, for instance, find strong parallels with today’s middle  class in authoritarian China and those of Latin America in their authoritarian  periods, showing the potential of fruitful comparisons. One of the great unresolved challenges for the study of China’s politics is for  sinologists to get out of the hutong more oen. ft  Given the emotional and personal  investment it takes to become a China specialist, this remains a daunting task. Bruce Gilley Bruce Gilley is an associate professor of political science in the Mark O. Hate fi ld School of Government at Portland State University. Xiaoming Chen. From the May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution: Guo Moruo and the Chinese Path to Communism. Albany:  State University of New York Press, 2007. xi, 156 pp. Hardcover $60.00,  isbn 978-0-7914-7137-1. © 2011 by University of Hawai‘i Press Guo Moruo is one of the leading literary figures in modern China. He is a major  scholar of Chinese archeology, a foremost expert on jiagu wen (oracle bone script)  and jin wen (bronze inscriptions), a well-known historian, a talented poet, a  218  China Review International: Vol. 17, No. 2, 2010 playwright, and a prolific writer. His publications include seventeen volumes of  Moruo wenji (Literary works of Moruo), thirty-eight volumes of Guo Moruo quanji (The complete works of Guo Moruo), and numerous other publications, with more  than ten million words in all his published works.  In 1999, the Chinese Academy  of Social Sciences ranked him number one among the thirty-four most renowned  Chinese scholars, and hundreds of books have been published in China about his  life and his academic achievements. Guo, however, is also one of the most controversial figures.  Because of his  heavy involvement in the Communist government aer ft  1949, many question his  personal integrity and the quality of some of his works aer ft  1949, especially aer ft   the Cultural Revolution.e  Th  controversy over Guo led to intensive debates and  even lawsuits in China in the late 1990s.  Probably for a similar reason, Guo has  not been an attractive subject in the West. While hundreds of books on Guo have  been published in Chinese, only a few studies in English are exclusively on Guo’s  life or works, among which, Xiaoming Chen’s monograph From the May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution: Guo Moruo and the Chinese Path to Commu- nism is, so far, the most important. e  Th  book oer ff s a comprehensive description  and systematic analysis of Guo’s early conversion from a Confucianist to a Com- munist aer ft  the May Fourth Movement in 1919. Through this relatively short but condensed study, Chen presents convincing  arguments about why Guo was attracted to the Communist ideas and how he  could follow the Communist teaching without totally abandoning his beliefs of  Confucianism. Through detailed analyses of Guo’s writing, Chen explains, step by  step, the change in Guo’s thinking and his eventual conversion to what Chen calls  a “Confucian Communist” (p. 52), Guo’s synthesis of Confucianism and Marxist  Communism (pp. 101–107). Chen’s framework of analysis, which separates the four  main orientations of Confucianism, “xiushen 修身 (morally cultivate the self ),  qijia 齊家 (regulating the family), zhiguo 治國 (managing the state), and ping tianxia 平天下 (harmonizing the world),” is innovative and convincing, providing  a key to understand Guo’s conditional acceptance of the Communist theory (p. 3).  As  one  of  major  representatives  of  the  May  Fourth  movement,  or  a  “May  Fouthian”  (p. 7), Guo vehemently opposed qijia or lijiao 禮教 (religion of rituals) part of  Confucianism, but remained loyal to other cannons of Confucianism, such as  xiushen, zhiguo, and especially ping tianxia. Guo seemed to be convinced, accord- ing to Chen, that the “cosmopolitanist” worldview expressed in the Communist  ideas would come together without much problem with the “Confucian cosmo- politanist perspective” (p. 2), or more specifically, the concept of datong 大同  (great harmony), which, according Chen, was one of the most important converg- ing points of the two worldviews in Guo’s understanding of Confucianism and  Communism (pp. 86–90). On the level of managing the state, Guo believed that  the “Confucian concept of rule ‘by men of virtues,’  ” was not “contradictory to  Marxism, because Marx recognized the importance of having ‘proletarian coun- Reviews  219 tries’ before the cosmopolitan Communist ideal is achieved” (p. 101). Neither did  he see much conflict “between his ideal of individual freedom and the Communist  collective goal of emancipating the whole of mankind” (p. 87). He did not even see  the two “diverge greatly on the family issue,” because “Marxist Communism is not  against ‘filial piety’ or ‘family’  ” (p. 101). All this explains why in Marxism Guo  “finally found a modern scientist way to realize the dream of Confucius,” who as  Guo suggested, “was only a premodern ‘utopian socialist’  ” (p. 87). e Th  book, however, is not just about Guo’s conversion to Communism. Chen  clearly indicates that his description of Guo’s modified understanding of Marxism/ http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png China Review International University of Hawai'I Press

From the May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution: Guo Moruo and the Chinese Path to Communism (review)

China Review International , Volume 17 (2) – Mar 1, 2012

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Abstract

Reviews  217 within China itself and by China-born scholars, including many of the authors  here, has reinforced this isolation of Chinese politics from the rest of the field.  Increasingly, China is studied in much the same way that “Americanists” in U.S.  universities study American politics, namely without any comparative grounding.  As the editors note, “the Chinese case does not have a large impact on the field”  (p. 5). Given the other challenges, this suggests a need for some strategy of research  that deals with the tradeoffs of cross-national research.e  Th  authors are probably  divided on this issue. However, the final word of the volume goes to Kenneth  Lieberthal, who issues a battle cry for the old sinology of area studies, qualitative  research, middle- or low-level theories, and policy relevance. His stand is  unfortunate because it tends to bury the debate rather than highlight it. Indeed,  Lieberthal’s own chapter shows the costs of sinology’s isolation. He cites a claim  that “entrepreneurs in China do not, as was the case in modern Western history,  seek to challenge the regime” (p. 276) to justify the singular focus on China. Yet  this claim itself is a comparative one, and notably one that is not widely accepted  any longer among students of Western democratic history. More widely, scholars  of Latin American politics, for instance, find strong parallels with today’s middle  class in authoritarian China and those of Latin America in their authoritarian  periods, showing the potential of fruitful comparisons. One of the great unresolved challenges for the study of China’s politics is for  sinologists to get out of the hutong more oen. ft  Given the emotional and personal  investment it takes to become a China specialist, this remains a daunting task. Bruce Gilley Bruce Gilley is an associate professor of political science in the Mark O. Hate fi ld School of Government at Portland State University. Xiaoming Chen. From the May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution: Guo Moruo and the Chinese Path to Communism. Albany:  State University of New York Press, 2007. xi, 156 pp. Hardcover $60.00,  isbn 978-0-7914-7137-1. © 2011 by University of Hawai‘i Press Guo Moruo is one of the leading literary figures in modern China. He is a major  scholar of Chinese archeology, a foremost expert on jiagu wen (oracle bone script)  and jin wen (bronze inscriptions), a well-known historian, a talented poet, a  218  China Review International: Vol. 17, No. 2, 2010 playwright, and a prolific writer. His publications include seventeen volumes of  Moruo wenji (Literary works of Moruo), thirty-eight volumes of Guo Moruo quanji (The complete works of Guo Moruo), and numerous other publications, with more  than ten million words in all his published works.  In 1999, the Chinese Academy  of Social Sciences ranked him number one among the thirty-four most renowned  Chinese scholars, and hundreds of books have been published in China about his  life and his academic achievements. Guo, however, is also one of the most controversial figures.  Because of his  heavy involvement in the Communist government aer ft  1949, many question his  personal integrity and the quality of some of his works aer ft  1949, especially aer ft   the Cultural Revolution.e  Th  controversy over Guo led to intensive debates and  even lawsuits in China in the late 1990s.  Probably for a similar reason, Guo has  not been an attractive subject in the West. While hundreds of books on Guo have  been published in Chinese, only a few studies in English are exclusively on Guo’s  life or works, among which, Xiaoming Chen’s monograph From the May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution: Guo Moruo and the Chinese Path to Commu- nism is, so far, the most important. e  Th  book oer ff s a comprehensive description  and systematic analysis of Guo’s early conversion from a Confucianist to a Com- munist aer ft  the May Fourth Movement in 1919. Through this relatively short but condensed study, Chen presents convincing  arguments about why Guo was attracted to the Communist ideas and how he  could follow the Communist teaching without totally abandoning his beliefs of  Confucianism. Through detailed analyses of Guo’s writing, Chen explains, step by  step, the change in Guo’s thinking and his eventual conversion to what Chen calls  a “Confucian Communist” (p. 52), Guo’s synthesis of Confucianism and Marxist  Communism (pp. 101–107). Chen’s framework of analysis, which separates the four  main orientations of Confucianism, “xiushen 修身 (morally cultivate the self ),  qijia 齊家 (regulating the family), zhiguo 治國 (managing the state), and ping tianxia 平天下 (harmonizing the world),” is innovative and convincing, providing  a key to understand Guo’s conditional acceptance of the Communist theory (p. 3).  As  one  of  major  representatives  of  the  May  Fourth  movement,  or  a  “May  Fouthian”  (p. 7), Guo vehemently opposed qijia or lijiao 禮教 (religion of rituals) part of  Confucianism, but remained loyal to other cannons of Confucianism, such as  xiushen, zhiguo, and especially ping tianxia. Guo seemed to be convinced, accord- ing to Chen, that the “cosmopolitanist” worldview expressed in the Communist  ideas would come together without much problem with the “Confucian cosmo- politanist perspective” (p. 2), or more specifically, the concept of datong 大同  (great harmony), which, according Chen, was one of the most important converg- ing points of the two worldviews in Guo’s understanding of Confucianism and  Communism (pp. 86–90). On the level of managing the state, Guo believed that  the “Confucian concept of rule ‘by men of virtues,’  ” was not “contradictory to  Marxism, because Marx recognized the importance of having ‘proletarian coun- Reviews  219 tries’ before the cosmopolitan Communist ideal is achieved” (p. 101). Neither did  he see much conflict “between his ideal of individual freedom and the Communist  collective goal of emancipating the whole of mankind” (p. 87). He did not even see  the two “diverge greatly on the family issue,” because “Marxist Communism is not  against ‘filial piety’ or ‘family’  ” (p. 101). All this explains why in Marxism Guo  “finally found a modern scientist way to realize the dream of Confucius,” who as  Guo suggested, “was only a premodern ‘utopian socialist’  ” (p. 87). e Th  book, however, is not just about Guo’s conversion to Communism. Chen  clearly indicates that his description of Guo’s modified understanding of Marxism/

Journal

China Review InternationalUniversity of Hawai'I Press

Published: Mar 1, 2012

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