The Socialist "Assembly Horn" Sounded During The May Fourth Period

The theory of socialism originated in Britain of the16th century. At the beginning of20th century, due to economic and political crises of Europe, the theory of socialism flourished and various schools of socialism came into being in Europe.And in China, the Opium war opened China's gate to the West, from then, China suffered exploitation of the imperialist and injury of warlordism, to save the nation became the primary duty of Chinese. China urgently needed a guiding theory to lead them to change the fate of China.To this aspiration, Chinese sought various schools of socialism through different routes, such as liberalism, socialism and pragmatism, etc. And among all these thoughts, socialism of several schools exerted the most significant influence on the route China took after that which included New Village Communism, guildism, anarchism and Marxism. These four schools of socialism once had a large number of followers and caused ardent debates, but later the former three became silent and almost died out, only Marxism survived the history and became the guiding theory of Chinese revolution and construction.What are the reasons behind the different fate of these four schools of socialism? To find the answer to this question, this dissertation tried to trace back to the beginning of these schools in China, to examine their writings, views and debates, in order to find the objective reasons why they failed or succeeded in the history.Roughly these four schools of socialism could be divided into two categories. New Village Communism and guildism belongs to the first category, i.e. the moderate socialism, while the later two belongs to the second, i.e. the revolutionary oneNew Village Communism is a product of utopian socialism, it came to China mainly through Zhou Zuoren. This school aimed to build up a village wherein each does his best and takes what he needs, and following the example, a society could be gradually innovated. So what this school desired was to innovate society peacefully. But without support on the level of institution, this desire had no possibility of fulfillment, the revolutionaries at that time pointed out that only bloody revolution could change China, the New Village Communism only was a rosy dream. So the experiment based on this school of socialism only last for a short period and failed. And similarly, the theory itself also became obscure by the end of May4th.Guildism, due to the significant influence of its supporters, that is, Liang Qichao and Zhang Dongsun, once won the belief of a large number of followers. And the famous Guildist Bertrand Russell who visited China at that time and gave lectures also contributed to the uprising of Guildism in China. And also due to the influence of Bertrand Russell, Guildism argued that China should put efforts in developing industry and education instead of socialism, this view ignited a most significant debate at the beginning of1920s. The Chinese Guildist denied class struggle and the need for proletarian dictatorship, like the New Village Communism, they tried to reform the nation gradually and peacefully. But without the building of an independent, sovereign and democratic nation, how could the industry and education be developed? So only revolution could reach the aim put up by the Guildism. So the guildism is not wrong in their aim, but wrong in the means they endorsed.For China at the beginning of the20th century, the primary duty was to save the nation. It could not be fulfilled through moderate route. Only revolution could. And that's why anarchism and Marxism both had more impact than the former two schools.Buy why anarchism, which was revolutionary and had more followers at the beginning became obscure and almost deserted later? When we examined the historical material, we find anarchism diverted too far away from reality and practice. It argued against any kind of dictatorship, sovereignty and state, arguing for absolute freedom. These views lead it to failure, for without proletarian dictatorship, the fruit of revolution could not be guarded, the justice for the weak could not be guaranteed. After its debate with Marxism, Anarchism took on a downward development, which is contrary to the development of Marxism.Marxism argued for violent revolution and proletarian dictatorship, which was very practical and could lead Chinese revolution to the last victory. And in addition, the Marxists were good at disseminating their ideas to the youth and won their support. All these contributed to its uprising after several debates with other schools of socialism.We should admit that, a theory must meet the desire of a nation, then it could survive and took roots in that nation. And meanwhile, we also should admit the values of the former three schools of socialism, they had the positive aims, only failed due to the means they chose.