May Fourth: A Patriotic Movement of Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

The May Fourth Movement, which occurred ninety years ago in 1919, has long been characterized as a patriotic event in textbooks and mainstream media, a collective memory to be refreshed and glorified periodically. The author seeks to characterize what kind of patriotism it was and its relationships with the cosmopolitanism, social regeneration, and individualism of the New Culture Movement of the period. The May Fourth Movement, after turning into a social movement, would inevitably become more ideology-driven and more political. Post-1922 fervor for politics, having emerged from the New Cultural Movement, had a distinctive doctrinal commitment and was fueled by specific ideology. But after 1922, in the wake of the upheaval of the May Fourth Movement and the continuous social movements, all social classes became dissatisfied with the warlord rule and the Beiyang government. The catalyzing effects of both ideology and social movement paved the way for the Nationalist Revolution. Like the May Fourth Movement, the Nationalist Revolution had its catalyst, which was nothing other than the consciousness of nationalism, being suppressed by the cosmopolitanism of the May Fourth period. What is stressed here is that social movement was not cultural movement. New Culture Movement could simply import theories and tolerate diversity, but a social movement needed mass mobilization and the propagation of ideas.