5・4 계몽운동과 민족・민주주의의 형성

Abstract

In this paper, I kept accent on the two aspects of the nationalist mass movement and the new cultural movement in order to approach to the apprehension of May Fourth Movement. The two aspects of the movement, developed coincidently before and after the epochal demonstration accident on May Fourth, 1919, were different each other in their origins and natures, but they had the common historical background and were promoted by the same leadership of new intellectuals and youthful students around universities and colleges. Accordingly, the two aspects joined each other and united into the greater movement, namely, May Fourth Movement in a broad sense. The New Culture Movement was a modern enlightenment movement in essence, against the Chinese tradition of civilization, and was to be inclined to modern Western civilization as model to rebuild Chinese state. Though happened protesting the Japanese aggression and pro-Japanese warlord Beijing regime, the May Fourth Movement also was originated from Chinese confronting with the advanced Western powers ultimately. So in the long run, it seems the nationalist movement was in contradiction with the new cultural movement. However, it is the historical characteristic of the movement that this contradiction between two aspects were harmonized each other in short period until their split at the beginning of the National Revolution. The substantial ideas of May Fourth enlightenment campaign were individual human rights and ideology of science, based on the evolutionary world view of competitive progress. Individual human rights as the basis of liberalism, and science as the fulfill of reason, these two ideas were the ideological forces driving the iconoclastic enlightenment thought against the Confucian ethics and other Chinese tradition. The great subject of enlightenment campaign was to rebuild the Chinese cultural and social conditions that had led to the fail of the Republic, in order to confront the national crisis. This momentum to pave the way for modern national state by the enlightenment, had common ground with the nationalist effort to resist foreign powers. Meanwhile, Chinese national movement, begun in the end of Qing dynasty, was formed in full scale through the May Fourth Movement. The enlightenment and nationalism in May Fourth Period, established their independent basis on social opinion and societies, separated from existing political scene. This is their historical originality differed from the past political campaign to save nation. The two aspects of May Fourth Movement begun directly after the World War Ⅰ, experienced a great transition stage before and after the end of World War. The great conversion of universal trend of thoughts from military rivalry between nations to utopian cosmopolitanism gave rise to the ideas of democracy and international cooperation and national self-determination of people. Under these influences, the two aspects of May Fourth Movement underwent a great change, claiming the end of civil war among warlords and foreign aggression. In consequence, The new prospects was opened for the mass nationalist and democratic movement, that affected the enlightenment movement, shifting emphasis from human rights and science to democracy and science. The democracy originated in Western Europe was liberal democracy operated by parliamentary politics through representative system, and thereafter the sphere of its concepts was so extended to include economic democracy and commoner’s democracy, etc., that it began from a concrete political methods at first and was transformed to the idealistic ideology for human welfare. Because of the introduction of ideological democracy during World War Ⅰ, Chinese ideas of democracy were confused without their accurate understanding about its origin, diverse patterns and multiple meanings. Towards the end of World War, socialism, and even Marxism.Leninism were adopted in the concept of democracy, as an idealistic system to surpass political democracy.