Column: Our Life and Times
China's May 4 movement
By Kevin A. Barry and Mary Holmes
This May marks the 80th anniversary of China's May Fourth Movement, one of
history's most creative youth movements. It began on May 4, 1919 when
students took to the streets of Beijing to oppose Japanese occupation. The
students soon gained the support of China's new working class. Massive
solidarity strikes, especially in Shanghai, forced the release of arrested
students and resignation of pro-Japan government ministers.
The May Fourth Movement exemplified not narrow nationalism but a profound
concept of national liberation. For no sooner had the youth seen the
government hesitate than they surged forth with a whole series of new
demands that challenged China's traditional structures of class, age and
gender oppression.
Sparked by women students, new groups such as the Women's Association of
Hunan launched the demand for the famous "Five Rights" for women: 1) equal
property and inheritance rights, 2) the right to vote and hold office, 3)
an equal right to education, 4) an equal right to work, 5) an end to
arranged marriages and their replacement by free choice.
It was during this period that Marxist ideas really penetrated China for
the first time, as Marxists and adherents of John Dewey's pragmatism
debated the best philosophy with which to liberate China. May 4 has
resonated ever since, most recently in the mass democratic uprising of 1989.
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