Chen Duxiu's Last Articles and Letters, 1937-1942 PDF
Preview Chen Duxiu's Last Articles and Letters, 1937-1942
Chen Duxiu's Last Articles and Letters, 1937-1942 Chinese Worlds ChineseWorlds, anewseriesfrom CurzonPressandtheUniversityofHawai'i Press, publishes high-quality scholarship, research monographs, and source collections on Chinese history and society from 1900 into the next century. 'Worlds'signals the ethnic, cultural, and politicalmultiformityand regional diversity ofChina, the cycles ofunity and division through which China's modern history has passed, and recent research trends toward regional studies and local issues. It also signals that Chineseness is not contained within territorialborders- overseasChinesecommunitiesinallcountriesandregions arealso 'Chineseworlds'. Theeditorsseethemaspartofapolitical, economic, social, andculturalcontinuumthatspanstheChinesemainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, South-East Asia, and the world. . Thefocus ofChineseWorldsison modernpolitics andsocietyandhistory. It includes both history in its broader sweep and specialist monographs on Chinese politics, anthropology, political economy, sociology, education, and the social-science aspects ofculture and religions. Village Inc. Chinese Rural Society in the 1990s Edited by Flemming Christiansen and ZhangJunzuo Chen Duxiu's Last Articles and Letters, 1937-1942 Edited and translated by Gregor Benton Chinese Business in Malaysia Accumulation, Accommodation and Ascendance Edmund 'Terence Gomez Chen Duxiu's Last Articles and Letters, 1937-1942 Edited and Translated by Gregor Benton UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I PRESS HONOLULU © 1998 GregorBenton All Rights Reserved Published in North America by UniversityofHawai'i Press 2840 Kolowalu Street Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822 First Publishedin the United Kingdom by Curzon Press 15 The Quadrant, Richmond Surrey, TW9 lBP England Printedin Great Britain Library ofCongress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Ch' en, Tu-hsiu, 1879-1942. [Selections. English. 1998] Chen Duxiu's lastarticles and letters, 1937-1942 / edited and translated by GregorBenton. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8248-2112-2 1. Ch' en, Tu-hsiu, 1879-1942-Correspondence. 2. Communists China-Correspondence. 3. Politicians-China-Correspondence. I. Benton, Gregor. II. Title. DS777.15.C5A4 1998 98-23410 r98 - Contents Foreword by Wang Fanxi IX INTRODUCTION Chronology 3 Editor's Introduction 11 A Note on the Texts and on Recent Studies ofChen Duxiu 31 LETTERS Letterto Chen Qichangand.Others 39 Letterto Leon Trotsky 44 Letterto Xiliu and others 50 Letterto Xiliu and others 54 Letter to Xiliu 56 Letterto Liangen 59 Letter to Xiliu 62 My Basic Views 70 Letterto Y 75 Letter to Hand S 76 A Sketch ofthe Post-WarWorld 78 Once Again on the World Situation 86 The Future ofthe Oppressed Nations 93 Letterto Y 102 I l: VI Contents ApPENDICES 1 Zheng Chaolin, "Chen Duxiu Had No Wish to Rejoin the Chinese Communist Party on LeavingPrison" 107 2 Leon Trotsky, "Letterto Frank Glass" 114 3 Chen Duxiu, "My Feelings on the Death ofMrCaiJiemin" 116 4 Gao Yuhan, "Oration at the Funeral ofMr [Chen] Duxiu" 121 5 Ming-yuen Wang, "TheStruggle with Chen Du-hsiu" 127 6 ShuangShan, "On ChenDuxiu's 'Last Views'" 130 7 Wang Fanxi, "Chen Duxiu, FounderofChinese Communism" 133 8 Zheng Chaolin, "Chen Duxiu and the Trotskyists" 142 '9 Xiao Ke, "Preface to the Collected Poems ofChen Duxiu" 150 Glossary 153 Index 161 List ofFigures The following photographs appear between page 94 and 95: 1 Zheng Chaolin, circa 1930 2 Chen Duxiu (left) and Peng Shuzi in 1932, at theirtrial inJiangning 3 Leon Trotsky, Mexico, 1939 (photo courtesy ofAlex Buchman) 4 TheProvisionalCentralCommitteeofthe(Trotskyist) CommunistLeague ofChina,winter1936. Clockwisefromleft:WangFanxi, FrankGlass, Hua Zhenlin (not a CC member), HanJun, Chen Qichang,Jiang Zhendong (photo courtesy ofAlex Buchman) 5 Chen Duxiu, circa 1937 6 Chen Duxiu. Chen's own penned caption reads: "Taken in the First NanjingPrisonin the springofthe 26thyearofthe Republic" (i.e., 1937) 7 ZhengChaolin, circa 1985 8 Wang Fanxi, Leeds, England, 1989 A Map ofChina in the 1930s appears on page 2 = Foreword WhenGregorBentonaskedmetowriteaforeword to this collection ofChen Duxiu'slastarticles andletters to introduce theirauthor to Western readers, Ifelt duty-boundto accept, as Chen's disciple, correspondent, and occasional critic. However, my great age and poor health prevent me from writing seriously about thesubject. In any case, the translatorhas already provided a detailedintroduction to Chen'slife, work, and thought, his prodigious role inChina'smodem history, andthe changingevaluationofhimbysucceeding generationsofChineseCommunists,aswellasexplaininginfootnotesvarious eventsand charactersrelevantto an understandingofthe text. Moreover, the book concludes with aseries ofappendices that evaluate Chen's stature as a thinkerand arevolutionary. As aresult, there islittleleftforme to say. Even so, I would like to take the chance to write a few lines about the special features ofChen's life and thinking. The first collection ofChen's writings, published in 1922 by Shanghai's OrientalBook Company, containedseveral dozen essays and alarge number ofcontemporary comments and letters written by him between 1915 and 1922. In abriefpreface to the collection he wrote: Theseseveraldozen essaysare not only notworks ofliterature but evenlack a systematicexposition.Theyaresimplyadirectaccountofmyvariousintuitions. However, theyareall myownintuitions, and in them Iforthrightlyspeakmy mind. Iparrotnoone,nordoIstrikesentimentalposes.Inthatrespect, theymay be worth publishing. The themes covered by these several dozen essays are numerous andvaried, thus demonstratingthatliteratureis the product ofsocial change. In that respect, too, theymaybeworth publishing.1 Injustafew lines, Chen gives the reader an extremely accurate description ofhisliterarystyleand his characteras aman. First, he tells us thathe writes straightfrom theheartabouthisintuitions, thatheplagiarisesno one, andthat headopts no sentimentalposes. Second, he points outthatliterature - which should be understood not in the narrow butin the widest sense, as writing ofall kinds- is the product ofchanges in society, so articles written byhim at different times tackle different themes. 1. ChenDuxiu, "Zixu" ("Author'spreface"), Duxiu wcncun("Collectedwritingsof[Chen] Duxiu"),Wuhu:Anhui renrnin chubanshe, 1987,pp. i-ii.
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