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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

D. W. Fokkema
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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

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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.

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

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

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

14 Ibid.

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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.

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35 Kuang-ming Daily, December 20, 1964.

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38 People's Daily, December 27, 1964.

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41 Kuang-ming Daily, December 20, 1964.

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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.

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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.

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