From The 1911 Revolution To The New Culture Movement: A Research On Chen Duxiu's Primary Thoughts

Chen Duxiu was one of the most important and controversial figures in Chinese modern history, whose changes of thoughts in different life phases are at all times taken as one of the major research projects by history researchers.With the deep-going of the study, the researches on Chen Duxiu's thoughts in the period of the 1911 Revolution are further developed. And yet all these were conducted in the single way of his revolutionary activities, without digging the relations of his thoughts in the Periods of the 1911 Revolution and the New Culture Movement, and also neglecting the convey and developments of his thoughts in these two periods. Therefore, based on the previous researches, the author tries to conduct a specific discussion about the conversions of Chen Duxiu's thoughts on the special changing era of the 1911 Revolution and the New Culture Movement.To start from his family backgrounds and personal activities, this thesis introduces Chen Duxiu's three major transforms before and after the 1911 Revolutionary period, namely, the transformation from the feudalist to "KangLiang supporter", from "Kang Liang Supporter" to revolutionary, and from revolutionary to "non- revolutionary," who tended to discard force and to explore a new cultural revolutionary approach to rescue China. In order to highlight the influences of the special historical period of the 1911 Revolution on Chen Duxiu's future revolutionary directions, Chapter two focuses on Chen's reflections on the 1911 Revolution. In the perspectives of the reflections on the times, Chen himself and the Chinese people as well, the possibilities of Chen's sparking the New Culture Movement are proved. This chapter further proves it was because of his attendance in the 1911 Revolution and owing to his reflections on the inner causes of its failure, that Chen Duxiu formed his own peculiar and keen perspectives on times and then drived the New Culture Movement to "make up lessons" for the 1911 Revolution.Chapter three is the main part of this thesis. It stresses the performances of Chen's thoughts in the period of the 1911 Revolution and the convey and development of them in the period of the new cultural Movement. By Chen's activities in the 1911 Revolution, Chapter three illustrates the ideas of "Democracy, Sciences, Anti-tradition and Literary Revolution" advocated by Chen Duxiu in the New Culture Movement have actually all been sung in or even before the period of the 1911 Revolution. The third Chapter demonstrates the various thoughts in the New Culture Movement putforward by Chen were in high accordance with the ideas of "Democracy, Sciences, Anti-tradition and Literary Revolution" advocated in the New Culture Movement. It further explains the thoughts of the literary revolution put forward by Chen in the period of the1911 Revolution not only accumulated abundant experiences for the one advocated in the New Culture Movement, but also made the full ideological and theoretical preparations for it.