The May 4th Movement originated as a student protest in Beijing in 1919 against the Treaty of Versailles, which gave Japanese control over Shandong province. The protests sparked a nationwide movement calling for political and social reforms and a rejection of traditional Confucian social values. Intellectuals promoted new ideas from the West and published radical works criticizing China's past. This helped launch the New Culture Movement, where thinkers debated reforms like embracing political ideologies like Marxism or adopting a more pragmatic approach.

2. Origins
 Parallels and connections to 1898 reforms
 Warlord Era, Japan’s 21 Demands
 Treaty of Versailles - Shandong
 New intelligentsia: 5 million educated in
West
 Beijing University (Peita) founded 1898 –
promoted free expression
 New Youth magazine started 1915: edited by
Chen Duxiu – attacked Confucianism
 Literary Revolution: attacks on traditional
language led by Hu Shi

3. Q1
 The May 4th Movement can best be described as a
reaction against foreign involvement in China?
B) True
C) False

4. Chen Duxiu

5. May 4, 1919
 3000 student demonstrators at Gate of
Heavenly Peace against Versailles Treaty,
Japanese demands and general state of China
 Cabinet minister’s house burned
 Manifesto declared:
“China’s territory may be conquered, but it
cannot be given away. The Chinese people
may be massacred, but they will not
surrender…”

6. 4 May 1919, Beijing
 The May 4th Incident
 House burned
 Former Chinese envoy to Japan beaten with iron bed
legs
 So heavily bruised his body looked like “it was covered
in fish scales” –Rana Mitter

7. Movement Spreads
May-June 1919
 Mass demonstrations throughout China
 Warlord cabinet resigns
 Students joined by the press and the middle class
 Sun Yatsen supported protest (but was ambivalent
about movement as a whole)
 Japanese goods boycotted
 Schools closed

8. Intellectual Revolution
 Explosion of new magazines
 Attacks on Confucianism
 Western ideas promoted
 Marxism promoted – New Youth spring 1919 edition (CCP founded 1921)
 Women’s rights (Ding Ling),
 Workers rights, trade union activity
 Peasant rights and education
 New educational ideas
 New literature, vernacular – Lu Xun

9. Lu Xun-author of “The
True Story of Ah Q”
“Our vaunted Chinese civilization is only a
feast of human flesh
prepared for the high and mighty”

10. Intellectual Conflict
Hu Shi: PROBLEMS
Beware of isms, simple solutions to complex
problems. Solve problems one at a time without
revolution but with PRAGMATISM
Vs
Li Dazhao: ISMS
Solve problems with a complete and thorough socio-
political transformation – revolution - MARXISM

11. Li Dazhao

12. CCP Founded
 Beijing University converts: Chen Duxiu, Li
Dazhao, Mao Zedong
 Comintern agent Voitinsky set up study
groups
 July 1921: First Congress of CCP in Shanghai
 Organized labour centres, workers’ schools,
strikes
 Chinese Seamen’s Union strike: union
recognition, increased pay

13. Key Features
 Nationwide student demonstrations against the Versailles Treaty and Japan
 Criticism of China’s past – attacks on “Confucius and Sons” – look to the West for solutions –
“keep young while growing old”
 New intelligentsia – five million by 1919 – Western schools
 Peking (Beijing) National University – founded 1898 – leading scholars: Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao,
Hu Shi
 Chen Duxiu’s New Youth magazine – attacks Confucianism – promotes social Darwinism
 Language Reform – rejection of classical Chinese – phonetic form of written characters
 Literary Revolution – Hu Shi – “Overthrow the painted and powdered literature of the aristocratic
few” – plain, simple expression – literature of the people
 Marxism – Bolshevik Revolution in Russia – promoted in special edition of New Youth May 1919 –
‘My Marxist Views’ (Li Dazhao)
 Rejected by Hu Shi – more study of problems, less talk of “isms” – argued for pragmatism of John
Dewey
 Lu Xun – China dying of suffocation – China as a cannibalistic society due to Confucianism etc

14. Recap
 Direct connections to 1898 Reforms e.g.: Beijing University
 New Culture movement related but different to May 4th
 New Culture focused on literature and culture less than
politics
 May 4th Movement an example of ‘Unstable Pluralism’,
e.g.: Weimar Germany
 Foreign models popular e.g.: Edison, Ghandi,Marie Curie,
Ataturk and Marx