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.The Boxers superstitiousness only reflected the socialconditions of the age, and at least they contributed to the movement fornational resistance. Instead of loathing the barbarism of the antiforeignBoxers of those years, we should loathe the civilization of the warlords,bureaucrats, unscrupulous merchants, university professors, and newspa-permen who at present curry favor with the foreigners! 25 In this view ofmodern China, the Boxers deserved to be grouped with the reform move-ment of 1898, the 1911 Revolution, and the May Fourth movement itself.Non-communists too began to re-evaluate the Boxers.Even Hu Shiacknowledged that the Boxers might be seen as an example of national resis-tance to barbaric Western aggression, though he remained horrified by theirindiscriminate killing.Professional historians played a key role in redefining what it meant to beChinese.That their voices were influential was perhaps due to the traditionalrespect granted to history in the Confucian view.26 A school of May Fourthhistorians, often students of Hu Shi, called themselves doubters of antiq-uity and demonstrated that myths about ancient Chinese emperors anddynasties were, indeed, only myths.Fu Sinian (1896 1950) emphasized thathistory was a universal process toward rationality and science.27 At the sametime, Hu and Fu found important precursors of scientific thought in the pre-Qin classical period from about the fifth to the third centuries BC, thusmaintaining a, if not the, central position in world history for China.Otherhistorians emphasized unique qualities of Chinese history and culture whichcontributed over time to its unique national spirit.More conservative histo-rians found Confucian social ethics to be at the core of the national identity,but they also acknowledged that China was built by many different peoplesand classes over thousands of years of invasions, population shifts, and amixed process of assimilation and change.In the case of invasions, forexample, outside conquerors both assimilated to Chinese ways, to a degree,and also contributed new features to the ongoing growth of the civilization.The notion that China always and completely assimilated foreign conquerorsremained popular, obviously fitting into the antiforeignism shared across thepolitical spectrum; however, professional historians, both the doubters ofantiquity and those of a more conservative bent, were moving away fromthis comforting view to a more complex vision of amalgamation.Beyond the work of historians using traditional written sources lay abroader intellectual movement to learn more about popular culture.For all National identity, Marxism, and social justice 189the disdain felt by intellectuals for the crudities of the popular imagination,folk literature became a way to redefine Chinese culture.28 Studies of folksongs, puppet theater, popular legends, fairy tales, and countless other expres-sions of the collective imagination multiplied in the 1920s and 1930s.This wasanother avenue intellectuals could follow to the countryside.Folklorists wereoften attacked for vulgarity and even obscenity, or for insulting particularreligions or groups (by publishing, for example, non-Muslim folk versions ofwhy Muslims do not eat pork), and encouraging superstition.However, thefolklore movement originated out of the iconoclasm of the age, finding national spirit in the hitherto little-known world of popular tales andsongs.Folklorists certainly did not turn away from democracy and science to embrace village culture unquestioningly, but they found in that culturebuilding blocks that could be used to construct the new culture they hopedfor.As opposed to the rotten edifice of Confucianism and significantly the equally perverted modernity, as they saw it, of the dance halls and newmass consumerism of cities like Shanghai, traditional folk culture displayedthe intelligence and independence of the people.In sum, the end result of these researches was to expand and broadenpossible definitions of Chinese culture and national identity.Only byincluding the people in the story of Chinese culture would it be possible todemocratize the society.Back at the turn of the century Liang Qichao hadcalled for a new history that would trace the development of the nation,not the trivial policies of emperors.A generation later, this task was wellunder way.The new historians might grant the old literati a special histor-ical role as the carriers of a valuable high culture, but the folk becameculture-carriers as well.Recognition of the changes Chinese culture under-went over time and of its multifaceted qualities created a broader sense ofnational identity. 10 The rise of political partiesKarl Marx looked at imperialism from the viewpoint of bourgeois capitalismand so praised the breaking down of Chinese walls.Lenin s view was for oncemore subtle.Lenin s analysis began with the expansive tendencies of theEuropean powers, which he traced to the stage of monopoly capitalism. This had produced a crisis of overproduction, since exploited workers couldnot afford the products being churned out by ever-more-efficient factories.The concentration of production and ownership into fewer and fewer hands,and the corresponding concentration of finance capital, would have ledEuropean workers into revolution if capitalists had not found a solution [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]