WILD LILIES: POISONOUS WEEDS
s:(2 978
WANG FANXI
2hh47:
Wild Lilies: Poisonous Weeds is a
collection of Chinese dissident
writings recently published by
Pluto Press. We reprint here an article from the collection by Wang
Fanxi entitled Chen Duxiu, Father of Chinese Communism, introduced
by the editor of the collection,
Greg Benton.
Chen Duxiu (Ch'en Tu-hsiu, 1879-1942) was
Struggle, and The October Revolution. These
system, and then I began to think about how not only a founder of the Chinese Communist
books were published under the auspices of
much my country and its people would suffer Party but he was also the main leader of the
New Youth, which was published by Chen
once these brutes achieved positions of power.
which
1919 May Fourth movement, with
Tu-hsiu. I also personally met Ch'en Tu-hsiu
Finally, I began to doubt the whole system of
as well as Li Ta-chao (Li Dazhao) — who were leaders of today's democratic movement
selecting talent through examination. It was strongly identify.
to become founders of the Chinese Comlike a circus of monkeys and bears, repeated
every so many years. But was the examination
For decades the CCP had nothing good to
munist Party." Mao Zedong said: *1 went to say about Chen Duxiu, but since Mao's death
Shanghai for the second time in 1919. There
system an exception, or were not China's
once more 1 saw Chen Tu-hsiu. I had first he has been partly rehabilitated. He is now
other institutions equally rotten? 1 ended up recognised once again as a founder of Chinese
agreeing with the criticisms raised in the
met him in Peking (Beijing) when I was at Communism. He is no longer held solely
Peking National University, and he had innewspaper Contemporary Events, and 1 switreponsible for the defeat of the Revolution of
ched my allegiance from the cxamination
fluenced me perhaps more than anyone else.* 1925-27, which is now blamed partly on
system to the reformist party of Kang Youwei
So Mao was Chen's pupil not just before the Moscow. But he is still described as a traitor
and Liang Qichao. And so an hour or two of
party was founded, but for a long time afterfor joining the Trotskyists, although the
wards too.
pondering decided the course of my life for charge that he colaborated with the Japanese
Chen Duxiu was born on 8 October 1879,
the next dozen years.
imperialists has been dropped.
The Kang-Liang reformist movement was
35 years after the Opium War and 15 years
considered very radical at the time that Chen
after the defeat of the Taiping Rebellion.
The author of this article, Wang Fanxi
Outer pressure and inner dissension had (Wang Fan-hsi, born 1907), was a member of
Duxiu joined it. It called for a replacement of the generation of Chinese radicals awakened
already shaken the Qing dynasty to its founthe absolute monarchy by a constitutional
dations. The corruption and incompetence of to political and intellectual life during the late
one, and it proposed a series of reforms to 1910s and early '20s, when Chen Duxiu was
the imperial system and the growing Western
save China. But just a year later, in 1898, the still the undisputed leader of the Chinese
threat had awoken many Chinese intellectuals
reformists suffered a crushing defeat, and in Revolution.
1900 the Qing rulers were humiliated by eight
to the need for reform. So when Chen Duxiu
As a Trotskyist Wang worked with Chen in 1930-31 and again in 1938, both
was born, China was already in the first stages
foreign powers during the Yihetuan (or Boxof political ferment and change.
er) upheavals. Chen's outlook on life and having spent most or all of the intervening
But Chen was brought up in a strictly
politics became more and more radical under years in gaol. Wang was more than once Chen's opponent on political and theoretical
the impact of these events. In 1904, in Anhui,
traditional way. Born into an Anhui gentry questions, but on the whole he sees himself as
he published Suhua bao, a newspaper written
family, he lost his father in the first months of Chen's
and
admirer.
in vernacular Chinese. In 1908 he went to
Wang's
his life, and was raised and educated by his
pupil
by Oxford
autobiography was
published
Shanghai, where he joined an underground
grandfather and his elder brother. They were
the
title
University Press in 1980 under
terrorist group and learned how to make
both classical Confucianists and set out to Chinese
Revolutionary,
bombs. By now he had already left Kang and
train the young Duxiu for the imperial exMemoirs,
aminations
1919-1949.
Liang way behind in his political views, and he
which were the sole path to
was advocating the overthrow of the Qing by
bureaucratic office under the Qing.
To many younger Chinese socialists the
force.
Chen had no liking for the Confucian name Chen Duxiu means little, and to most
classics, and even less liking for the bagur or
Even before the fall of the Qing in 1911 socialists outside China it means nothing at
eight-legged
essay, a stereotyped form of
Chen was arrested for his political activities in all. Of China's main Communist leaders only
Anhiu. After his release he was driven into excomposition in which examination candidates Mao, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi and a handful
ile in Japan. There he collaborated with Sun
were required to excel. However, to please his of others have won fame in the outside world.
Yatsen, founder of the republican nationalist
grandfather and his mother he took the first How
a
Chen,
could
stand
nonentity.
Guomindang and chief architect of the Qing's
exam at the age of seventeen, and came top of alongside these great leaders? But in truth
never
Sun's
joined
overthrow, but he
the list with a xiucat degree. The following Chen was anything but a nonentity in the
organisation. On his return to China during
year, in 1897, he went to Nanjing to take part history of the Chinese Revolution. If judged
the 1911 Revolution he became political direcin the triennial examination for the degree of not just by what he achieved directly but by
tor of the revolutionary army in Anhui. But
juren. As a result of his experiences there he his influence over an entire historical period,
after the nationalists compromised with Yuan
lost interest for once and for all in the imperial he ranks not only above Zhou and Liu, but
examinations and, more important, began to
Shikai, representative of the ancien régime, he even above Mao himself.
question the soundness of China's basic inwas once again forced into exile in Japan,
he
a
where
In 1936, in conversation with Edgar Snow,
stitutions.
published
revolutionary
Zhou and Mao frankly acknowledged Chen's
He vividly described his feelings in his unnewspaper. Returning to China in 1915, he influence on them, and Snow reported their
finished Autobiography. One candidate, a far
founded the journal Youth in Shanghai, remarks in his classic Red Star Over China.
renamed New Youth the following year. New
man from Xuzhou who paced up and down
the examination pen naked but for a pair of
Youth was to play a major role in the further But Zhou and Mao apparently had second
of
for the Chinese translation
unfolding of the Chinese Revolution. In 1917 thoughts,
broken sandals, chanting his favourite baga,
New Youth's editorial board moved north to Snow's book was withdrawn from circulation
made a particularly deep impression on Chen. in the spring of 1938. Zhou had told Snow:
Beijing, where Chen was invited to become
"I could not take my eyes off him", he wrote. *Before going to France, 1 read translations of
Dean of Letters at Beijing National Universi-
*As I watched I fell to thinking about the
whole strange business of the examination the Communist Manifesto; Kautsky's Class
ty, China's highest and most progressive in-