Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T12:36:58.440Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chinese Criticism of Humanism: Campaigns Against the Intellectuals 1964–1965*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

D. W. Fokkema
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During the heyday of the Hundred Flowers period the Chinese literary rebels sought their models outside China. They understood that, if liberalisation were to have any chance at all, it should reach China via the communist countries and not via the Western world. Therefore many Chinese writers studied Soviet literature, and made no secret of their admiration for those Soviet writers who had presented unorthodox views, or views that, though correct in the Soviet Union, seemed to be unorthodox in the Chinese context. Zoshchenko, Ehrenburg, Galina Nikolayeva, Ovechkin and Simonov were admired by the very Chinese writers who were later labelled as major “rightists,” such as Liu Pin-yen, Ch'in Chao-yang and Huang Ch'iu-yün. Several liberal Chinese writers also readily adopted the Soviet habit of extolling the Russian classics as literary models. Thus, in 1956, during the Chinese commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Dostoyevsky's death, one Chinese critic spoke of “humanism” (jen-tao-chu-i) as one of Dostoyevsky's contributions. Feng Hsüeh-feng praised the humanistic spirit of the old Russian literature and criticised contemporary Chinese works as untruthful. Hsiao Ch'ien, another major “rightist,” in an essay on short story writing advocated the style of Chekhov and I. A. Bunin. One dogmatic Party leader, moreover, was criticised by the non-conformists for having a low opinion of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.

Type
Recent Developments
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 26 , June 1966 , pp. 68 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See the author's Literary Doctrine in China and Soviet Influence 1956–1960 (The Hague: Mouton, 1965)Google Scholar.

2 Wen-yi pao, No. 9, 1956, pp. 42–43Google Scholar.

3 Wen-yi pao, No. 5, 1958, p. 8Google Scholar.

4 Wen-yi pao, No. 6, 1957, p. 12Google Scholar.

5 Wen-yi pao, No. 9, 1957, p. 3Google Scholar.

6 Wen-yi pao, No. 1, 1958, pp. 12–19Google Scholar.

7 Wen-yi pao, No. 1, 1960, p. 18, and No. 8, pp. 13 and 15Google Scholar.

8 Wen-yi pao, No. 11, 1958, p. 41Google Scholar.

9 Wen-yi pao, Nos. 8–9, 1964, pp. 17 and 19Google Scholar.

10 See Simon, Joseph, “Ferment among Intellectuals,” Problems of Communism, No. 5, 1964, pp. 29–38Google Scholar.

11 Hung Ch'i (Red Flag), Nos. 17–18, 1964, pp. 14–21Google Scholar.

12 Red Flag, Nos. 21–22, 1964, pp. 13–25Google Scholar.

13 Quoted in Kuang-ming Daily, December 25, 1964.

14 Ibid.

15 For other biographical data, see Oliver, Adam, “Rectification of Mainland China Intellectuals 1964–65,” Asian Survey, V, No. 10, 1965, pp. 475–490CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Red Flag, No. 16, 1964, p. 10Google Scholar.

17 Ibid. p. 8.

18 Ibid. p. 10. Some authors maintained that “combining two into one” was a synthetical method and like the analytical method of “dividing one into two,” was nothing but a part of the dialectical method of cognition; they too were rebuked.

19 Ibid. pp. 8–9.

20 Kuang-ming Daily, December 18, 1964.

21 Munro, Donald J., “The Yang Hsien-chen Affair,” The China Quarterly, No. 22 (04–06 1965), pp. 75–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Kuang-ming Daily, December 18, 1964.

23 Red Flag, No. 16, 1964, p. 11Google Scholar.

24 Red Flag, No. 15, 1964, pp. 32–43Google Scholar.

25 Kuang-ming Daily, November 7, 1963.

26 Ibid.

27 Jen-min jih-pao (People's Daily), July 18, 1964. Cf. Jen-min Jih-pao (People's Daily).

28 Quoted in Red Flag, No. 15, 1964, p. 40Google ScholarPubMed.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid., p. 38.

31 Kuang-ming Daily, January 23, 1965.

32 Wen-yi pao, Nos. 11–12, 1964, pp. 3–13Google Scholar.

33 Wen-yi pao, Nos. 8–9, 1964, p. 16Google Scholar.

34 Wen-yi pao, Nos. 13–14, 1960, p. 47Google Scholar.

35 Kuang-ming Daily, December 20, 1964.

36 Wen-yi pao, Nos. 8–9, 1964, p. 17Google Scholar.

37 Ibid., pp. 11 and 17.

38 People's Daily, December 27, 1964.

39 Wen-yi pao, Nos. 8–9, 1964, pp. 4 and 7Google Scholar.

40 Ibid., pp. 19 and 21.

41 Kuang-ming Daily, December 20, 1964.

42 Wen-yi pao, Nos. 8–9, 1964, pp. 11 and 12Google Scholar.

43 One of the co-authors of the famous novel The Heroes of Lü-liang (Lü-liang ying-hsiung chuan), 1949.

44 Hsia Yen has been a subject of another series of attacks on literary figures this spring; others include Wu Han, Ch'ien Po-tsan and Tien Han—Editor.

45 People's Daily, November 8, 1964.

46 Translated into English as Uncle Kao (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1957)Google Scholar.

47 Wen-yi pao, No. 10, 1964, pp. 40 and 42Google Scholar.

48 Wen-yi pao, No. 2, 1965, p. 25Google Scholar.

49 Yang-ch'eng Wan-pao (Canton), between 02 5 and 26, 1965Google Scholar, as translated in Current Background (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 762, p. 30.

50 Ibid., pp. 33 and 43.

51 Wen-yi pao, No. 1, 1965, pp. 28–30Google Scholar.

52 “Humanismus in der jüngsten Sowjetliteratur?” Abhandlungen der Klasse der Literatur, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur im Mainz, 1963, No. 1, p. 4Google Scholar.

53 “In Search of Humanism,” Problems of Communism, No. 5, 1965, pp. 18–31Google Scholar.