The Revolutionary Literature Debates And The Origin Of Class Literary Theory

From the end of 1927 to early 1928, the Communist Party of China met setbacks in political activities as a result of the failure of the Great Revolution. But the ideology of communism therefore obtained independence. Meanwhile the communist literati began to gang up again after a huge division, with vitality reviving; Since the political situation of Communist intellectuals degenerated, the flag of Revolution Literature and Proletarian Literature was seriously advocated. In the face of fierce criticism from the revolutionary literati, not only right-wing literati (such as Liang Shih-chiu), but also literati which inclined to left-wing (such as LuXun, MaoDun), fought back against the revolutionary literary group. All of which generated the controversy of Revolutionary Literature. Through the two-year long debate, proletarian literary theory was deepened and propagandized. Left-wing literati came to make consensus on the understanding of proletarian literary theory, which layed the foundation for the League of the Left-wing Writers. By probing into the relevant texts and their theory resources, contacting with history track, this paper digs up some fundamental issues through complex debates.The body of this paper contains six chapters, with each chapter focusing on one or two core issues. Chapter I excavates oversea theory sources of the Sun Club and the Creation Club, proves the immediate relation between Creation Club and Western Marxism, and then gets some new understanding of the debate between two groups. On the groud of Chapter I, the next two chapters start by examining two concepts—"class consciousness" and "Practice" of the post-Creation Club, reveal the fresh traits of the post-Creation Club's revolutionary theory, thus make a more in-depth explication of those debates. Chapter IV focuses on the core issue of Class Literary theory—the relationship between class nature and human nature, and explores the transformation of legitimacy arguments for Revolutionary Literature. This chapter also explores the main differences between left-wing and Liang Shih-chiu, by grasping both sides' theoretical resources closely, showing the rationality and bias of the two parties. Chapter V revolves around the Revolutionary Literary theory's view of reality. This chapter discusses the relationship between literature and propaganda as well as revolutionary writers's new understanding of reality, and analyzes the relationship between historical inevitability and the reality. Chapter VI starts from an investigation of the relationship between intelligentsia and small bourgeoisie, revealing that in a situation which class revolutionary theory conquered people day by day, intellectuals how to reply their their bourgeois identity. By means of the comparison of different paths, this chapter acquires an in-depth comprehension for intelligentsia's self-understanding mechanism.Through meticulous investigations on Revolutionary Literature debates occurred mainly in 1928 to 1929, this paper broaden and deepen the understanding of class literary theory, and presents a more comprehensive view of the origin of Chinese proletarian literature theory. It also provides some references and premises for the study of Chinese Proletarian Literature's development hence 1930.