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The Sage in the Inkpot: Bertrand Russell and China's Social Reconstruction in the 1920s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Suzanne P. Ogden
Suzanne P. Ogden
Affiliation:
Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts Associate Professor, Dept of Political Science, Northeastern University, Boston, Mass.
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Abstract

However surprising Russell's combination of mathematical logic and pacifist anti-capitalist ethics may appear, it becomes understandable if one looks for its psychological roots. He who is ready to overthrow the oldest traditions in logic and to uncover the illusory nature of ancient ideals will also look with more freedom at the ideals of bourgeois ethics and not be afraid to give up values which those who are tradition-bound are unable to renounce.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 1982 , pp. 529 - 600
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 Reichenbach, Hans, ‘An Early Appreciation’ (article written on December 2, 1928), in Shoenman, Ralph (ed.), Bertrand Russell: Philosopher of the Century (Boston, 1967), p. 133.Google Scholar

2 In fact, the Chinese tended to perceive him as the world's most eminent ‘philosopher’ (undefined) of that time. See, e.g., Shih-ying, Ch'u, ‘Lo-su’ (‘Russell’) in Lo-su yueh-k'an (LSYK), (The Russell Monthly), No. 1 (01 1921), p. 1.Google Scholar

3 Russell's, Principles of Social Reconstruction (London, 1916)Google Scholar, not only presents his case for pacifism, but also attacks such revered institution as property, education, marriage, and religion.

4 Russell took with him his mistress and co-worker, Dora Black, who was to become his second wife. Although Dora Black was not originally invited by the Chinese, she also spoke frequently while in China on women, social problems, and education. Yet Black's role cannot be adequately assessed. We know very little about what she said in China, except for a few printed lectures; and we know even less about the Chinese response to her. Their interest—at least as expressed by those writing in the popular journals—was focused on Russell to the nearly complete exclusion of Black.

While Black's views on Bolshevism contrasted sharply with Russell's and were the source of much personal conflict between them, the Chinese did not indicate their awareness of this problem. They reacted in an embarassed though proper manner to their living arrangements, although they never knew quite how to treat the couple living ‘out of wedlock.’ Apparently, Russell reacted to their attitude with ironic amusement; for shortly after their arrival in China he wrote to Trinity College, Cambridge, to resign his position as Lecturer on the grounds that he was ‘living in sin.’ (Clark, Ronald, The Life of Bertrand Russell (New York, 1976), p. 369.)Google Scholar The slightly nonplussed yet welcoming response of the Chinese contrasted sharply with the outraged attitude of the British Foreign Office, which even considered having Russell evicted from China because Russell ‘would certainly prove subversive and dangerous to British interests at a Chinese educational institution where his pronouncements would be decidedly “ex cathedra”.’ The British resisted such action only because of their fear of a strong public reaction and perhaps because of their knowledge of his disillusionment with Bolshevism. While the Chinese would have no part of any British scheme to get Russell out of China, the Foreign Office did manage, shortly after his arrival, to get him on ‘a list of murderers, spies and other disreputable characters listed under “Suspected Persons” in a Secret Abstract to the Director of Military Intelligence,’ where Russell appeared as number six (Ibid., pp. 386–7).

5 Grieder's, Jerome B.Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance (Cambridge, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Hay's, Stephen N.Asian Ideas East and West (Cambridge, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Furth's, Charlotte'sTing Wen-Chiang: Science and China's New Culture (Cambridge, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Meisner's, MauriceLi Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism (Cambridge, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar are among the many books that examine the Chinese intellectuals' interest in foreign models and ideas and indicate how the Chinese tried to synthesize these ideas.

6 Russell, ‘First Impressions of China’ (unpublished, no date), Russell Archives, McMasters University, Hamilton, Ontario.

7 I infer this from the fact that Bergson and Russell were subsequently invited to China; William James was already dead. These lectures are available in ‘John Dewey, Additional Lectures in China, 1919–1921,’ Thomas Hale Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii, Honolulu. Robert W. Clopton and Ou Tsuan-chen are the editors and collectors.

8 Pershing Fu, T., or, Fu T'ung, Letter to Professor Muirhead (Peking University: no date, but obviously in 1920), Russell Archives.Google Scholar

9 Russell, Letter to the Editor, Shanghai Life (12 21, 1920) (written while Russell was in Peking).Google Scholar

10 Levenson, Joseph R., Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Mind of Modern China (Berkeley, 1967), p. 190.Google Scholar

11 Chang Sung-nien (Chang Shen-fu or Chang Chih), a well-known member (and one of the founders) of the New Tide Society, a student at Peking University, and a participant in the May Fourth Movement, was considered ‘China's Russell specialist.’ Later he became a professor of philosophy at Peking University and taught Russell's mathematical logic. He was not only an exponent of Russell's mathematical philosophy, but also of his theories of government and society, including guild socialism. Apparently, he tried to combine the study of dialecticism and historical materialism with the scientific and objective methods of Russell. Among other important works, he wrote So ssu and edited Shih-chieh ssu-ch'ao (Trends of Thought in the World). Chang is given credit for introducing Russell's mathematical logic in Shih-chieh ssu-ch'ao. See Ch'an-po, Kuo, Chin wu-shih nien chung-kuo ssu-hsiang shih (History of Chinese Thought in the Past Fifty Years) (Peking, 1935 and 1936), pp. 225–9, 377.Google Scholar

Chang tended to view Russell's philosophical theory as a gestalt that linked together his theories of society, government and mathematics (mathematical atomism). (See Chang Sung-nien, ‘Lo-su’ (‘Russell’), (09 1, 1920)Google Scholar, Hsin Ch'ing-nien (hereafter cited as HCN), Vol. 8, No. 2 (10 1, 1920), p. 183.)Google Scholar He apparently did this on the basis of Russell's emphasis on the individual and individual liberty. In addition to the above-mentioned biographical article on Russell, he also compiled ‘A Tentative Bibliography of Bertrand Russell's Published Writings’ (Shih-pien Lo-su chi-k'an chu-tso mu-lu'), HCN Vol. 8, No. 3 (11 1, 1920), pp. 339–52Google Scholar. Yet he never became an integral part of Russell's China trip, since he left for France shortly after Russell's arrival and could not participate in the discussions about Russell. Thus Brière is incorrect in his statement that Chang Sung-nien was Russell's interpreter while in China. Brière, O., Fifty Years of Chinese Philosophy, trans. from the French by Thompson, Lawrence G. (London, 1956), p. 26.Google Scholar

At the close of his letter to Russell indicating he was imminently departing for France, Chang indicated his admiration of Russell: ‘May you favor me with a copy of your photography and your autograph? I only wish this because I worship you.’ See Letter to Russell, November 9, 1920, Peking University, in Russell Archives. A later letter indicated that Chang was more interested in the ‘technical’ aspect of Russell's philosophy than in his social philosophy. Letter to Russell, December 11, 1920, in Russell Archives.

12 Tse-tsung, Chow, The May Fourth Movement (Stanford, 1960), pp. 232–5.Google Scholar

13 Yu-ning, Li, The Introduction of Socialism into China (New York, 1971), pp. 6, 12–13Google Scholar. Later, beginning in 1906, Liang felt challenged by the socialism advocated by his enemies in Sun Yat-sen's party, the T'ung Meng-hui, to distinguish his socialism from their socialism. For a thorough discussion of Liang's position in the early 1900s, see Hao, Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890–1907 (Cambridge, 1971), esp. Chaps 5 and 8.Google Scholar

14 Bernal, Martin, Chinese Socialism to 1907 (Ithaca, 1976), p. 190Google Scholar. Bernal described Liang as ‘a believer in social reformism and German state socialism, the only forms of socialism he thought realistic … Liang tended to describe complete socialism in extreme terms, in order to make it seem utterly impracticable.’ As will be seen, this was almost identical to Russell's stance in the 1920s.

15 Keenan, Barry, The Dewey Experiment in China (Cambridge, 1977), p. 76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Chang Tung-sun was a journalist, editor of the Shih-shih hsin pao, editor of Chieh-fang yu kai-tsao, a philosopher, political activist and supporter of the constitutional theories of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao. He, too, was at this time a guild socialist associated with the Progressive Party and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao. He defended metaphysics over science. According to O. Brière, Chang was totally uninfluenced by Chinese philosophy. He began with Kantian epistemology and later moved to the question of the ‘pluralism of knowledge: A synthesis, finally, of Kant and the Americans Lewis and Morgan.’ Brière, , Chinese Philosophy, p. 39Google Scholar. As will be noted later, Chang became one of Russell's strongest supporters among Chinese intellectuals.

17 Politically, Carsun Chang favored state socialism. He is known for his criticism of science and his opposition to Westernization. He favored limiting the role of science, and preached the need of a ‘moral ideal’ rather than scientific principles as the guide for living. He argued that the field of ‘knowledge’ had to go beyond the ‘truths’ of science to include the ‘truths’ of philosophy, aesthetics and religion, a view supported by Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, his teacher. Brière, , Chinese Philosophy, pp. 7, 29–30Google Scholar. Carsun Chang's role in the debates on science versus metaphysics and the relative value of Eastern (‘spiritual’) and Western (‘material’) civilization are described in Charlotte Furth's Ting Wen-chiang, pp. 99–135. Since Carsun Chang was studying in Germany from 1919 to 1922, he was not in China when Russell visited.

18 Barry Keenan provides an interesting perspective on just who was likely to be a liberal: those ‘returned students’ who were trained in advanced industrial states. Because of their experience, they became committed to ‘reform’ and development in a way that differed from the commitment of reformers and revolutionaries who stayed in China. (Chou En-lai, Ch'en Tu-hsiu, Teng Hsiao-p'ing and others are obvious exceptions.) For these latter groups, ‘dedication came from a moral commitment to rectify social injustice within China. … The impatience most U.S. returned students felt with conditions in China was also expressed as a lack of interest in revolutionary experiments. To them, the models of industrial progress already existed. They were too aware of China's humiliating inferiority to be tolerant of romantic and untested proposals for social reorganization.’ Keenan, , The Dewey Experiment in China, pp. 157–8.Google Scholar

19 As Keenan points out, HCN, for example, started out under Ch'en Tu-hsiu as the leading New Culture journal, but after the May 4, 1919 movement, it became heavily politicized. Keenan states their dilemma well: ‘They assumed that political reform was possible only through deeper culture reform; but culture reform itself could not get started until political conditions were changed.’ Keenan, , The Dewey Experiment in China, pp. 72–4, 76, 79.Google Scholar

20 Appendix, ‘Chiang Hsüeh-she huan-yin Lo-su chih-sheng’ (‘The Lecture Society Welcomes Russell’), LSYK, No. 1, 1921, pp. 1–3.Google Scholar

21 For example, Li Ta-chao was until 1917 a member of the Chinputang, and he supported the establishment of a parliamentary system of government in China. But between his departure from the Chinputang and his founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, there was a long, gradual transition on Li's part: his new-found radicalism moved him to join the Westernized, ‘non-political,’ and ‘alienated intelligentsia’ of the Hsin Ch'ing-nien group rather than the Sun Yat-sen revolutionary political movement. And only toward the end of 1918 did he even mention Marxist doctrine. Even then, however, he moved first to populism, with his real interest in Marxism coming only after the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. Similarly, Ch'en Tu-hsiu, another founder of the CCP, had placed his faith in Western democracy until the Versailles Conference of 1919. By mid-1920, he was completely in the Marxist–Leninist camp. Marxism for Ch'en ‘replaced democracy as the most advanced expression of contemporary Western thought.’ Meisner, , Li Ta-chao, pp. 33–5, 58–61, 75 and 109.Google Scholar

22 Hofheinz, Roy Jr, The Broken Wave: The Chinese Communist Peasant Movement, 1922–1928 (Cambridge, 1977), p. 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Meisner, , Li Ta-chao, p. XV.Google Scholar

24 The party was far too small for much political action in the beginning, with only 57 members. It grew slowly but steadily, however, from only 200–300 in the beginning of 1923 to no more than 1,000 members by the spring of 1925. Then it expanded rapidly. See Sheridan, James E., China in Disintegration: The Republican Era in Chinese History, 1912–1949 (New York, 1975), p. 122.Google Scholar

25 A letter from Nathaniel Peffer, a well-known American journalist in China, for example, attempted to assuage Russell's fears that he would not be welcome in Canton. To the contrary, Peffer said, all the heads of the southern government, including Sun Yat-sen, Wu-fang, Tang Shao-i and Ch'en Chiung-ming (see Winston Hsieh's paper in Harvard Papers on China for his relationship to Sun Yat-sen) had personally indicated to him their enthusiasm for Russell's visiting Canton. Lin Wen-p'eng apparently read Russell's Roads to Freedom in Chinese translation (Tzu-yu chih-lu). Ch'en Chiung-ming, a 'self-renounced tuchun’ (warlord), spoke of a system of economic rule that coincided with Russell's own ideas: the economy of the people would be nationalized and controlled by ‘unselfish’ men for the benefit of the people, with the profits to be used for public works, education and benevolent purposes (Nathaniel Peffer, letter to Russell, March 22, 1921, Canton, in Russell Archives), exactly the ideas Russell was soon to advocate for China.

Chang Chien (1853–1926) is an example in Chinese history of a man qualified to be a scholar-official, who chose instead to use his abilities to develop industry in order to contribute to China's progress. While he was convinced that modern education must underlie all reforms, he personally lacked the funds to introduce educational reforms. So he chose to be an industrialist in order to acquire sufficient funds to educate, while in the process of strengthening China. Chu, Samuel C., Reformer in Modern China: Chang Chien, ‘1853–1926 (New York, 1965)Google Scholar. He would have been the archetypical example of Russell's ‘resolute man’, which will be discussed below‥

26 Indeed, it was the Versailles Peace Conference, rather than the Bolshevik Revolution which provided the major catalyst to the formation of the Chinese Communist Party (and of course to nationalism). In fact, little Marxist literature, or even literature from other branches of socialist thought, was translated into Chinese before 1919. See Sheridan, , China in Disintegration, p. 111.Google Scholar

27 Liang Ch'i-ch'ao specifically said that members of the Lecture Society had read Roads to Freedom, but there was little evidence of how widely read Russell's books were before his arrival, except that their translation suggests at least some circulation. In contrast, almost nothing about Dewey or by Dewey was published or heard about until the eve of his actual arrival in China. Keenan, , The Dewey Experiment in China, p. 11.Google Scholar

28 Bibliographies of Russell's most important works were given by two Chinese authors, but both appeared after Russell's arrival: ‘Ch'u Shih-ying’, ‘Lo-su’ (‘Russell’), LSYK, No. 1 (01 1921), pp. 1–7Google Scholar; and Sung-nien, Chang, ‘Shih-pien Lo-su chi-k'an chu-tso mu-lu (‘A Tentative Bibliography of Bertrand Russell's Published Writings’), HCN, Vol. 8, No. 3 (11 1, 1920), pp. 339–52Google Scholar. These bibliographies at least indicate Chinese awareness of Russell's important works.

29 It should be noted that Russell wrote Principles of Social Reconstruction as a pacifist responding to the First World War, and that it was a statement of his despair about human conflict.

30 Russell, Bertrand, Political Ideals (New York, 1917), p. 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Russell stated quite similar—almost identical—ideas the year before when he wrote Principles of Social Reconstruction. See Ch. I, esp. pp. 12–17.Google Scholar

31 Russell, , Principles of Social Reconstruction, pp. 16–17Google Scholar. These ideas of creativity and possessiveness seem very closely connected with Russell's idea of logic being ‘analytic’ and not ‘constructive.’ The analytic approach reveals unsuspected alternatives (like the creative impulse) rather than ‘the impossibility of alternatives which seem prima facie impossible’—this tells what the world may be, not what it is. In a sense Russell is saying that ‘constructive’ logic tries simply to possess what is already known, rather than to go beyond it. See Russell, , Our Knowledge of the External World (1914)Google Scholar. Also see Principles, p. 8.Google Scholar

32 Russell, , Political Ideals, pp. 17, 34–5, 41–2.Google Scholar

33 Ibid., pp. 50–1, 54–5. Also consult Russell, Roads to Freedom: Socialism, Anarchism, Syndicalism (New York, 1919), pp. xi–xii.Google Scholar

34 Political Ideals, pp. 100126Google Scholar; Roads to Freedom, pp. xi–xii.Google Scholar

35 ‘The Lecture Society Welcomes Russell,’ p. 5Google Scholar; and Sung-nien, Chang, ‘Lo-su’ (‘Russell’) (09 12, 1920)Google Scholar, HCN, vol. 8, No. 2 (1920), p. 182.Google Scholar

36 Schwarcz, Vera, personal correspondence (1977).Google Scholar

37 Reportedly attended by Chou En-lai and Mao Tse-tung (Clark, , Life of Bertrand Russell, p. 369).Google Scholar

38 These lectures formed the basis for his book, The Analysis of Mind (London, 1921)Google Scholar. Russell wrote the preface to it from Peking (June, 1921), and the eight lectures he gave on this topic were translated and appeared in the two issues of LSYK (January and February 1921) that the Lecture Society published during his stay. The purpose of the LSYK (Russell Monthly) was precisely for making a record of Russell's lectures in China even though it did not, in fact, publish most of them before its publication ceased. The editors alleged that no lecture was published until after Chao Yuan-jen had corrected it. They invited students who had criticism or research relating to Russell's theories to publish them in this monthly.

39 Russell, , ‘Hsin-ti fen-hsi’ (‘The Analysis of Mind’), LSYK, No. 1 (01 1921)Google Scholar. The Chinese themselves were the first to admit their lack of preparation for understanding Western mathematical logic and scientific analysis. See, e.g., Yuan-jen, Chao, ‘Lo-su che-hsüeh ti ching-shen’ (‘The Spirit of Russell's Philosophy’), LSYK, No. 1 (01 1921), p. 2.Google Scholar

40 It was not until 1902 that officially sponsored schools for the public were authorized to establish a Western-style mathematics and science curriculum. Yet even after this, it took another generation before Chinese professors adequately trained to teach scientific disciplines in their own language emerged. Most advanced training in science still was available only to the few who went abroad. Furth, , Ting Weng-chiang, p. 12.Google Scholar

Among those who ‘excused’ themselves from attending Russell's lectures on mathematical philosophy was Coker Chen, who was interested only in Russell's social philosophy and took little interest in his technical philosophy. (See Coker Chen, Letter to Y. Z. Tsoa, December 10, 1920, Russell Archives.) But this is not to suggest that interest in Russell's mathematical philosophy was nonexistent, as he recieved numerous invitations to speak on it. See Letters to Russell from Pershing T. Fu (Fu T'ung), November 22, 1920; S. J. Tsen, July 25, 1921; Fu Chun-sun and Chang Ban-ming, December 23, 1921, Russell Archives.

41 Tse-tung, Chow, May Fourth Movement, p. 236.Google Scholar

42 The Russian Revolution, of course, inspired the Chinese revolutionary movement in other ways, largely because of the apparent good will of the new Soviet government toward China, including its stated willingness to return the Chinese Eastern Railroad to Chinese control, its renunciation of the Czarist unequal treaties, and other generous acts. See Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei, speech in 1923 welcoming Joffe from Comintern, as quoted in Chiang Mon-lin (Chiang Meng-lin), Tides from the West (Hsi ch'ao) (Taipei, 1963, originally written in 1942–43).Google Scholar

43 Russell, , ‘Shih-yeh chu-i chih ku-yu ti ch'u hsiang’ (‘The Necessary Trends in Industrialization’) in ‘She-hui chieh-k'ou hsüeh’ (‘The Study of Social Structures’), in Lo-su chi p'o-la-k'o chiang-yen chi (Collection of Lectures by Russell and Dora Black) (Peking, 1921). p. 35.Google Scholar

44 Russell, , Letter to the Editor, Shanghai Life (12 21, 1920)Google Scholar. Another misrepresentation Russell referred to was the paper's statement that ‘he questioned two peasants he met on his way, and after this conversation came to the conclusion that there is not one peasant communist in Russia.’ According to Russell, he, in fact, spoke to ‘many hundreds of peasants in many different villages, but I drew no such inference as is attributed to me.’ Also see Russell, Letter to Henry Emery of the Asian Banking Corporation (January 14, 1921, Russell Archives).

45 Ssu-yuan, Ho, ‘Pu-erh-sai-chi-k'o chu-i’ (‘Commentary on Russell's Bolshevism: Practice and Theory’), Hsin ch'ao, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1921), pp. 106, 112.Google Scholar

46 Russell, , ‘Yu o chih kan-hsiang’ (‘Impressions While Travelling in Russia’), HCN, Vol. 8, No. 2 (10 1, 1920), p. 219.Google Scholar

47 Russell, B., Bolshevism: Practice and Theory (New York, 1920), pp. 4–5Google Scholar; also Appendix, , ‘The Lecture Society Welcomes Russell’, p. 6.Google Scholar

48 Russell, , Letter to Emery (12 21, 1920), Peking, Russell Archives.Google Scholar

49 Russell, , The Problem of China, p. 185.Google Scholar

50 Ssu-yuan, Ho, ‘Pu-erh-sai-chi-k'o chu-i,’ p. 117.Google Scholar

51 Ibid., pp. 108–10.

52 B. Russell, ‘Ssu-ch'an chih-tu tui-yu shih-yeh chu-i ti yin-hsiang’ (‘The Influence of the System of Private Property on Industrialism’), in a series of four lectures entitled ‘She-hui chieh-k'ou hsueh’ (‘The Study of Social Structures’), in Collection of Lectures of Russell and Dora Black p. 47; Russell, ‘Shih-yeh chu-i chih ku-yu ti ch'u hsiang’ (‘The Necessary Trends in Industrialization’), in ibid., pp. 21–2.

53 Ho Ssu-yuan, ‘Pu-erh-sai-chi-k'o chu-i,’ pp. 105–6, 108–10. Ho argued that an organizational linkage existed among the many facets of society: the government, industry, commerce, the social system, etc., were intimately intertwined within each state. Both the good and the bad resulted from a collective effort. If the society were to be enriched, then, it had to advance on the basis of equality. It was for this reason that Ho praised the Bolshevik destruction of individualism and the privatism (private property) of capitalist society, its major ‘virtue’ or ‘Morality’ (tao-teh). If the system was to be destroyed, then the major virtue, which helped perpetuate capitalism, had to be destroyed simultaneously. In its place would come the socialist system and its major ‘virtue’—collectivity or collective property. Again, although quite indirectly, Ho herein apparently was rejecting Russell's view that the Bolsheviks had neglected man's ‘consciousness’ and ‘spirit’ (ching-shen)—their need for freedom of thought and mind. Ho essentially argued that each system had a particular nature and that a free, individualistic nature was incompatible with a communist system. Ibid., p. 111. Regrettably, Ho failed to draw a conclusion from all of this. For the time being he would not say whether Bolshevism was appropriate, but he praised the Bolshevik effort to put ideology into practice; and he postulated that if in fact the Russian communist system was established, in one hundred years society might decide it was not the best system, nor collectivity the best virtue, and return to privatism (capitalism).

54 Russell, , Bolshevism, p. 130Google Scholar. Later, Russell wrote a book entitled Power (London, 1938).Google Scholar

55 Russell, , Bolshevism, pp. 6, 14Google Scholar; ‘Bertrand Russell on the Religion of Bolshevism,’ Peking Leader (12 19, 1920)Google Scholar, Peking; Russell, ‘Hsien-tsai shih-chieh fen-lun yuan-yin (‘The Cause of Chaos in the Modern World’), in the series entitled ‘The Study of Social Structures,’ pp. 6–7Google Scholar. Russell said, ‘I went to Russia a Communist, but contact with those who have no doubts has intensified a thousandfold my own doubts, not as to Communism itself, but as to the wisdom of holding a creed so firmly that for its sake men are willing to inflict widespread misery.’ (Bolshevism, p. 41.)Google Scholar

56 Russell, , Letter to the Editor, Peking Leader (12 25, 1920).Google Scholar

57 Ho, , Pu-erh-sai-chi-k'o chu-i, pp. 107, 111.Google Scholar

58 Russell, , Bolshevism, pp. 180, 132Google Scholar. Russell attributed the despotism of Bolshevism to Russian character traits rather than to communist principles (pp. 19–20)Google Scholar, implying that Bolshevism's ruthless and despotic qualities need not be part of communism in other countries.

59 Ibid., p. 159.

60 Wang Ching-wei is another example of the fluidity of politics in the early twentieth century: a man who moved from being a primary spokesman for nationalist revolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to an interest in Marxism–Leninism in the 1920s, and then moved firmly into the KMT, albeit as a contender for power against Chiang K'ai-shek.

61 ‘Joint Manifesto of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Adolf A. Joffe’ (01 26, 1923)Google Scholar, in Shieh, Milton, The Kuomintang: Selected Historical Documents, 1894–1969 (St. John's University Press, 1970), p. 71.Google Scholar

62 This was a movement to make the Chinese written language closer to the spoken language (pai-hua), to make it accessible to more than a few highly educated literati. It was also felt that pai-hua was more flexible and would permit the transmission of new ideas about democracy, liberalism, individualism, etc. Since it would be easier to learn, the use of pai-hua would facilitate mass education and lay the foundation for democracy.

63 The differences between the two would be that China would have to avoid ‘excessive bureaucratic dictatorship and over-emphasis of economic factors at the expense of ethics … and look for further liberal and democratic development.’ See Russell, , ‘Farewell’ (Chinese), pp. 367–8Google Scholar. Chinese state socialism would differ from the Russian version also in the very fact that in Russia a revolution was fought to gain control of the state ‘by the people.’ In China, Russell was not suggesting a revolution but merely a more competent government. Hence, in practice, his concept of state socialism for China would have meant simply a powerful élite taking over control of the government and of capitalism; in short, a partially nationalized system.

64 In certain circles in China, ‘state socialism’ was already a popular idea in the early 1900s. Both Russell and these early advocates of state socialism in China (Liang Ch'i-ch'ao in particular) seemed to derive their model from the slow, evolutionary movement toward state socialism as practised in Germany and Austria. (For Liang's position, see Bernal, , Chinese Socialism, p. 104, and Ch. 6Google Scholar, ‘The Socialism of The People's Journal, 1905–06.’) Indeed, in Russell's case, it is striking that his model of state socialism has far more in common with this earlier German model than with the more recent Bolshevik revolution. (Note that Russell had written German Social Democracy, 1896.)Google Scholar

65 Russell, , ‘Farewell’ (Chinese), p. 365Google Scholar. Even Marx recognized that socialism, as a transitional stage between capitalism and communism, necessarily retained certain capitalist characteristics. Some Chinese socialists in the early 1920 presumed that an orderly progression through stages toward communism was required.

66 In Chinese, the term is sometimes only ‘nationalism’ or ‘nationalization,’ which stands for the more complete term ‘national socialism.’ Such interchangeability of terms indicates the Chinese understanding of what socialism implied. Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Chang Chün-mai (Carsun Chang) had both been advocates of state socialism. Chang in particular saw it as a system in which the nation's best interests came first, and the ideology of socialism itself was subordinate to such interests. See Brière, , Chinese Philosophy, p. 31.Google Scholar

67 Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (1903), quoted in Bernal, Chinese Socialism, p. 103. For more on Liang's view of state socialism, see also Ibid., Ch. 7, ‘The Controversy on Social Policies between Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Revolutionary Alliance.’

68 Russell, , ‘Farewell’ (Chinese), pp. 359, 363–4Google Scholar. Russell also prescribes the transferal of loyalty from the family to the nation, and the need for patriotism, p. 362.Google Scholar

69 Already there were indications that some socialists, later to become important Communist Party leaders, saw rural land reform and the building of a strong agricultural sector (prior to and as a basis for industrialization) as the first step toward ending poverty.

70 Liang Ch'i-ch'ao apparently held quite similar views. He worried about the failure of nationalization unless there was a sufficient number of technicians, a public concern for the welfare of the state, and codification of laws and regulations. See Yu-ning, Li, Introduction of Socialism into China, p. 45.Google Scholar

71 While Russell was himself considered a ‘libertarian,’ he came down hard on the side of industrialization first, freedom later. He spoke of the need to curb liberty when such things as food shortages or war existed. Thus Russell excused the lack of liberty in Russia because of the shortages brought on by the war and then the Western countries’ boycott of Russia. He argued that given the lack of educated and skilled workers, combined with the need for centralized national control, guild socialism would be inappropriate to China. In England, ‘If every guild were to have taken care of itself and there had been no overall organization, industrialization could not have occurred.’ Russell, , ‘The Cause of Chaos,’ p. 34Google Scholar; and Tung-sun, Chang, ‘Reply to Sung-hua,’ p. 504.Google Scholar

72 Tuan-liu, Yang, ‘Conversation with Russell’; Chang Tung-sun, ‘Letter to Ch'en Tu-hsiu,’ and ‘Reply to Kau Chien-ssu’; Ch'en Tu-hsiu, ‘Reply to Tung-sun's letter,’ in Ch'en Tu-hsiu (comp.) ‘Kuan-yu she-hui chu-i t'ao lün’ (‘Discussion of Socialism’), HCN, Vol. 8, No. 4 (12 1920), pp. 499, 502, 505, 507, 510Google Scholar. In this same series of letters, Chang substantially contradicts himself on this point: ‘I hesitate to say whether we should consider the elimination of Chinese capitalists as the means to eliminate foreign capitalists, or whether there is an intimate relationship between the two.’ (p. 507.)Google Scholar This is the only time, however, that Chang seems to consider the problem of linkage, and I am therefore reluctant to say he was not really certain, as all his other statements would indicate he was.

Nearly identical arguments had been made as far back as the early 1900s by such emminent Chinese as Liang Ch'i-ch'ao. Liang had argued that the priority for development of the Chinese economy would have to be to encourage capitalism. Protecting the proletariat would be secondary. His reasoning was that ‘native capitalists were needed in order to resist foreign capitalists’ and that the job of the Chinese government should therefore be to ‘protect the Chinese capitalists to enable them to expand their enterprises and to compete with foreign capitalists.’ Yet Liang, like Russell, also expressed fear that foreign capital would bring with it the same social evils it had brought to the West. See Ch'i-ch'ao, Liang, Hsin-min ts'ung-pao, No. 52 (09 10, 1904)Google Scholar; No. 53 (September 24, 1904); No. 54 (October 9, 1904); and No. 56 (November 7, 1904), as referenced in Li-Yu-ning, , Introduction of Socialism into China, pp. 37, 11, 12.Google Scholar

73 Tuan-liu, Yang, ‘Conversation,’ p. 506.Google Scholar

74 Even Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, while against foreign capital, ‘did not flatly reject utilization of foreign capital. Rather, he proposed that the future new government [… in 1904] raise a large foreign loan to develop large industry and follow the principles of state socialism.’ (Kuo-chia she-hui chu-i.) See Yu-ning, Li, Introduction of Socialism into China, p. 12.Google Scholar

75 Tu-hsiu, Ch'en, ‘Reply to Tung-sun's Letter,’ p. 509.Google Scholar

76 A label put on men like Chang Tung-sun by the socialists, indicating their preference for social reform over political revolution. ‘Conservative’ was relative to the socialists, who were would-be Communists, and relative to the progressive ideas of the times. The ‘new’ aspect was that these Chinese were no longer conservative in the traditional Chinese style, but rather in their interest in reform and a cautious approach to change.

77 Fo-hai, Chou, ‘Shih-hsingshe-hui chu-i yu fa-chan shih-yeh’ (‘Practicing Socialism and Developing Industry’), HCN, Vol. 8, No. 5 (01 1, 1921), pp. 667–70.Google Scholar

78 Tu-hsiu, Ch'en, ‘Reply to Tung-sun's Letter,’ pp. 510–11.Google Scholar

79 Ch'en included farmers and other non-industrial workers, even handicraftsmen, as ‘workers.’ Yet, he saw lao-nung chu-i—the ideology of workers and farmers together—or what might be considered another term at this time for communism in a largely agrarian country, as the appropriate topic for debate. He did not discuss a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’ See Ch'en, , ‘Discussions,’ pp. 512, 514Google Scholar. Although Ch'en seemed to see a need for peasant participation, as late as 1925, the Communique of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party at its Fourth Congress (January 1925) ‘linked the word peasant each time with a hyphen to the word worker, and failed to provide a political program for the peasantry.’ Hofheinz, Jr., The Broken Wave, p. 18Google Scholar. But at least Ch'en did not see the workers as carrying out revolution all by themselves.

80 Tzu, Li, ‘Critique of Tung-sun's Lesson,’ in Ch'en, ‘Discussions,’ p. 495.Google Scholar

81 Tuan-liu, Yang, ‘Conversation,’ pp. 505–6.Google Scholar

82 Russell, , ‘Chung-kuo tzu-yu chih lu’ (‘China's Road to Freedom’), Che hsüeh, No. 31 (09 1921), p. 363Google Scholar. (Translated by Fu T'ung from the English draft, not from his actual speech in Chinese.) I have used the English draft where possible, and the Chinese version where I think the translation makes enough difference that it is important to know what the Chinese thought Russell was saying.

83 Ibid., pp. 366–7.

84 In a letter to Russell, Ch'en Tu-hsiu lamented that ‘many newspapers, especially the organs of the Chinese capitalists, stated with approval that you profess that the first thing is to improve education and then industry … but the propaganda of socialism is not necessary in China.’ Ch'en noted that while capitalism had been successful in enhancing industry and education in Europe, the U.S. and Japan, it simultaneously ‘made these people become selfish, cheating, wicked and unconscionable. Moreover, this great war and the future economic revolution are the outcomes of capitalism.’ Ch'en urged Russell to correct this ‘mistaken’ viewpoint or else risk the ‘disappointment of the advanced Chinese.’ (November 14, 1920, Shanghai.) In Russell Archives. Also in Tu-hsiu, Ch'en, ‘Discussions,’ p. 498.Google Scholar

85 Russell, , ‘The Necessary Trends in Industrialization,’ p. 13.Google Scholar

86 Ibid., pp. 14–15; 16–17.

87 Tu-hsiu, Ch'en, ‘Reply to Chang Tung-sun,’ pp. 508–9.Google Scholar

88 Sheridan, , China in Disintegration, p. 105Google Scholar; and Grieder, , Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance, p. 25.Google Scholar

89 Political democracy not in the sense of a parliamentary regime, but as a system under which all men and women would hold the same basic rights.

90 Russell, , ‘The Necessary Trends,’ pp. 25–6Google Scholar; Chang, , ‘Reply to Sung-hua,’ p. 503.Google Scholar

91 Tzu, Li, ‘Critique of Tung-sun's Lesson,’ p. 497.Google Scholar

92 Ta-chao, Li, in Meisner, , Li Ta-chao, pp. 105, 106.Google Scholar

93 Ibid.

94 Ai Shih, A Cheng-pao Reporter, ‘Life Fitting for a Human Being,’ in Ch'en, , ‘Discussions,’ p. 492.Google Scholar

95 Tzu, Li, ‘Critique of Tung-sun's Lesson,’ p. 495.Google Scholar

96 Again, these issues were not new to Chinese reformist/revolutionary discouse. Many of these same questions preoccupied the Chinese before the 1911 Revolution. Chu Chih-hsin (‘Probably the most sophisticated socialist thinker among Sun Yat-sen's group,’ and one who was apparently original in using Marxism to interpret Chinese history and revolution), and other Min-pao writers had, for example, already raised the question of whether the revolution should seek to prevent the abuses consequent upon industrialization in the West, or whether, on the other hand, the revolution must emerge out of the social conflicts engendered thereby. See Yu-ning, Li, Introduction of Socialism into China, pp. 29–30Google Scholar and Bernal, , Chinese Socialism, for context.Google Scholar

97 Chang Tung-sun, ‘Everyone Should Remember Mr Russell's Advice to Us in its Entirety,’ in Ch'en, , ‘Discussions,’ p. 498.Google Scholar

98 Meisner, , Li Ta-chao, p. 106.Google Scholar

99 This was the rather common formula of state socialism, not only for Germany but also for early twentieth-century advocates of state socialism in China, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao being the prime example.

100 Appendix, ‘The Lecture Society Welcomes Russell,’ p. 6.Google Scholar

101 Russell, , ‘The Influence of the System of Private Property on Industrialism,’ pp. 48–9.Google Scholar

102 Russell, , The Problem of China, p. 250.Google Scholar

103 Russell, , ‘The Necessary Trends,’ pp. 34, 25.Google Scholar

104 Russell, , ‘The Cause of Chaos,’ pp. 16, 48Google Scholar. In a private letter to Henry Emery, written while he was in China, Russell indicates a real fear of class war: ‘If the class war becomes world wide, the issue will be neither the establishment of communism nor the re-establishment of capitalism, but the ruin of industry and education, and the downfall of our whole civilization … however small may be the chance of averting the universal class-war, we ought to try to avert it so long as the chance is not nil.’ (Peking, January 14, 1921), Russell Archives.

105 Russell, , ‘The Necessary Trends,’ p. 28.Google Scholar

106 Russell, , Letter to Henry Emery (01 14, 1920), Russell Archives.Google Scholar

107 Russell, ‘The Business of Education,’ apparently notes for a lecture he gave in China, but not published in a Chinese journal to my knowledge. No date, Russell Archives.

108 Russell, , ‘Hsien-tsai shih-chieh,’ pp. 16, 18.Google Scholar

109 Fo-hai, Chou, ‘Practicing Socialism,’ pp. 663–4Google Scholar; and Chi, Li, ‘She-hui chu-i yu chung-kuo’ (‘Socialism, and China’) (01 4, 1911), HCN, Vol. 8, No. 6 (04, 1, 1921), pp. 800–1Google Scholar. Li Chi, while giving Marx and Engels credit for being the ‘fathers of modern socialism,’ and ‘very perceptive in many ways,’ noted that they were still human, not gods, and that their perceptions were limited by their time and their environment. Thus their predictions have lost accuracy over time. Marx did not foresee, e.g., that Russia, a basically agricultural country, and not the more industrialized countries, would be the first to practice socialism. Li Chi suggested Marx should be used as a reference, but that the Chinese should not accept his ideas as necessarily valid. Chi, Li, pp. 802, 803.Google Scholar

110 Chi, Li, ‘She-hui chu-i yü chung-kuo,’ pp. 801–2, 799Google Scholar. As proof, Li Chi notes the desperate conditions of the workers in the Chung-shing Coal Mining Co. in Shantung Province. Even after a whole day's work the Chinese laborer cannot maintain a subsistence standard of living. He concludes that if there were many more such companies in China, within ten years China would probably have lost half its working force and would have to import laborers from abroad!

111 Fo-hai, Chou, ‘Practicing Socialism,’ pp. 663–4.Google Scholar

112 Li Chi was defining the situation in a slightly different manner than most Chinese did: instead of describing direct and indirect foreign capitalism as ‘imperialism’, and prescribing nationalism as the antidote for the disease, Li Chi grouped together foreign and native capitalists (essentially under foreign control) as ‘capitalists’. To this group he added the many ‘small’ capitalists (petite bourgeoisie) that abounded in China (by adopting Chang Tung-sun's own terminology that called all land-owning farmers ‘petite bourgeoisie’). Li Chi concluded, therefore, that China certainly had enough capitalism to promote the requisite oppressive conditions for revolution. Chi, Li, ‘She-hui chu-i yü chung-kuo,’ pp. 796–8, 800–2Google Scholar. Li Chi was a member of the Communist party until he was expelled in 1927 for being a Trotskyite. His major work was a three volume biography of Marx (Ma-ko-ssu ch'uan)!

113 Liang Ch'i-ch'ao also wanted to borrow money abroad in one large loan in order to nationalize capital ‘so that every industry can be controlled. This is simply a policy of state socialism like that which is beginning to spring up in Germany and Austria. Then after some years we will not suffer from the labor problem and our production system would probably reach that of other countries.’ Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, ‘Wai-tzu shu-ju wen-t'i,’ 4th installment, Hsin-min chung-pao, LVI (11 7, 1904), p. 13Google Scholar, in Bernal, , Chinese Socialism, p. 104.Google Scholar

114 Russell, , ‘The Cause of Chaos,’ pp. 11–12Google Scholar. This topic had already been debated between Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and his socialist revolutionary adversaries (i.e., Sun Yat-sen and the T'ung Meng-hui group) in the early 1900s, with Liang stating that revolutionary policies would alienate foreign governments and make them reluctant to give China credit. Bernal, Chinese Socialism, pp. 167, 188. The boycott of Russia subsequent to the Bolshevik revolution naturally vindicated the position of those, such as Liang, who opposed revolutionary policies. Here again can be seen the dual position of Liang, like Sun: they denounced foreign capitalism but wanted foreign loans and investments.

115 Fo-hai, Chou, ‘Practicing Socialism,’ pp. 670–1.Google Scholar

116 Ibid., p. 662.

117 Ibid., pp. 662, 666.

118 As Mao was to say much later referring to Lenin's theory: ‘The proletariat should seize political power. Don't wait until capitalism has rendered millions or tens of millions of medium and small individual producers and inhabitants bankrupt. Deprive industry of the means of production and transfer them to ownership by all the people.’ (Mao Tse-tung, Mao Ssu, critique of Stalin's ‘Economic Problems of Socialism in the Soviet Union’ (1959), JPRS 61269–1 (02 20, 1974), Pt I, p. 195.)Google Scholar

119 Russell is mentioned only once, quite marginally, in the Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung.

120 He Zhang, Jian (Ho Chienchang) ‘Newly Emerging Economic Forms,’ Beijing Review (05 25, 1981), p. 18. Emphasis added.Google Scholar

121 Aldous Huxley, ‘The Relevance of Style,’ in Shoenman, , Bertrand Russell, p. 91Google Scholar, quotes Bertrand Russell as follows: ‘In relation to any political doctrine there are two questions to be asked: (1) Are its theoretical tenets true? (2) Is its practical policy likely to increase human happiness? For my part, I think the theoretical tenets of Communism are false, and I think its practical maxims are such as to produce an immeasurable increase of human misery.’ Huxley concludes that Russell was for ‘humane and realistic thinking against political censorship.’

122 T'ung, Fu, ‘Chih Chang Tung-sun hsien-sheng shu' Kuan-yü ch'i tui-yü Lo-su shih hou-yen,’ Che hsüeh, No. 3 (09 1921), pp. 341, 344.Google Scholar

123 Tung-sun, Chang, ‘Reply to Sung-hua,’ p. 503.Google Scholar

124 The problem of assessing the accuracy of what Chang said is that he seemed to be referring to the same speech and yet called it two different things: Russell's speech at his Farewell banquet, and Russell's ‘China's Road to Freedom,’ which was also referred to (and to my knowledge really is) his ‘Farewell’ speech. Chang alleged that at his ‘Farewell banquet,’ Russell said China needed only a dozen good men (although neither the English nor the Chinese versions indicate he ever said such a thing in this speech): but in his ‘China's Road …” speech he said China must have 10,000 good men. The only plausible explanation is that either Russell's speech was not published; or that there is an oral version of the ‘China's Road …’ that the Chinese heard, but only the written version was published, which contradicted the oral version. In any event Fu T'ung responded to Chang as if there were indeed two different speeches.

125 Tung-sun, Chang, ‘Postscript’ (originally appeared in Shih-shih hsin pao-p'ing, 06 31, 1921), in Fu T'ung, pp. 347–8.Google Scholar

126 T'ung, Fu, ‘On Chang Tung-sun's Letter,’ pp. 343, 352–6.Google Scholar

127 Russell, , ‘Farewell’ (Chinese), p. 357. Emphasis added.Google Scholar

128 Sidney Waterlow, quoted in Clark, , Life of Bertrand Russell, p. 408.Google Scholar

129 Henfrey, Norman (ed.), Selected Critical Writings of George Santayana. (Cambridge, 1968), Vol. I, pp. 326–7.Google Scholar

130 Clark, , Life of Bertrand Russell, p. 404.Google Scholar

131 Pao-ch'ang, Chu, Fen-hsi p'i-p'an Lo-su che-hsüeh ti tun k'o-kuan chu-i t'ai-tu (An Analysis and Critique of Russell's Philosophical Altitude of Pure Objectivism) (Shanghai, 1957), pp. 8–11Google Scholar. It should of course be noted that this was written during the ‘Hundred Flowers’ period in the People's Republic of China. This kind of analysis was not permitted prior to this liberalization program (of brief duration).

132 ‘Even the ordinary practical scientific outlook, that which simply believes in machines, engineering, and organization, can give a certain help in our search after ethics. The Western industrial worker is accurate and honest to a degree that is not possible in any pre-industrial civilization. These qualities acquired in this work influence the industrial worker in his political and private life. He becomes a man on whose word … one can rely; the clear accuracy of his work makes him love accuracy in itself; he knows a man cannot cheat in chemistry … and he gets a desire not to cheat and deceive in political and social relations.’ Black, Dora, ‘Men and Women of Young China,’ Che-hsüeh, No. 3 (09 1921), p. 5Google Scholar. Yet somehow John Dewey said essentially the same thing and managed to make it sound not only plausible but desirable. He designated control by the ‘authority of tradition,’ which appealed to ‘myth, rewritten history, or speculation,’ as a problem confronting societies, and urged that it be replaced by the ‘authority’ of science, which appealed to fact. He claimed that science creates a ‘new honesty’ by enhancing people's capacity ‘to distinguish truth from falsity.’ Indeed, like Russell and Black, he linked scientific method to democracy, and on this basis argued for educating the common man in scientific methods. See Keenan, , The Dewey Experiment in China, pp. 38–41.Google Scholar

133 Black, Dora, ‘Men and Women of Young China,’ Che-hsüeh, No. 3 (09 1921), p. 11Google Scholar (emphasis added); Russell's, ‘Farewell’ (Chinese), p. 368Google Scholar; and Russell, , ‘The Necessary Trends,’ p. 35.Google Scholar

134 Russell, , ‘The Necessary Trends,’ p. 24.Google Scholar

135 Others have interpreted Russell differently. Victor Purcell, for example, felt that to counter the ‘leveling down’ theory, Russell did not say that any one function was superior to another, but that the division of labor created by industrialization permitted a section of the society to engage in full-time industrial activities. Victor Purcell, ‘Fifty Years’ Influence,’ in Shoenman, , Bertrand Russell, p. 39Google Scholar. But I think my interpretation is correct for Russell's ideas as expounded in Chinese; for while he admired the achievements of the leisured classes in history, he did not admire the systems that produced them, and he wanted everyone to have leisure.

136 In the 1970s, e.g., Russell's 1922 book, The Problem of China, was translated and republished in Taiwan. And Russell's History of Western Philosophy (1942?) was translated and circulated widely among academic circles on the mainland. The first half was published before the ‘Cultural Revolution,’ and the 2nd half in the late 1970s. It is considered an interesting reference book for scholars, the viewpoint of a great logician, although his analyses are deemed ‘incorrect’ and superficial.

137 However, in the Chinese setting of the 1920s, nothing remained ‘non-ideological’ for long. On this topic the Nationalists and Communists could agree, but it was a highly ‘ideological’ question in the debate between ‘traditionalists’ and ‘modernists.’

138 Yü-t'ang, Lin, My Country and My People (New York, 1939), p. 11.Google Scholar

139 Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, ‘Tung-nan ta-hsüeh k'o-pi kao pieh-tz'u,’ in Yin-ping-shih wen-chi (Collected Essays of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao), referenced in Levenson, , Liang Ch'i-chao, p. 121.Google Scholar

140 Russell, , ‘On the Special Characteristics of the Chinese National Character,’ Tung-fang tsa-chih, Vol. 19, No. 1,Google Scholar quoted in Kuo-chu, T'ao, Min-tsu lün (no city given, but is probably Chungching: Tu-li ch'u-pan she, 1943), pp. 45–6.Google Scholar

141 After quoting Russell, Lu Hsün remarked, ‘as for Russell, who praises the Chinese after seeing smiling porters at the Western Lake, I do not know exactly what he is driving at. I do know one thing: if the porters had been able not to smile at those whom they had carried, China would have long since been out of its present rut.’ Lu Hsün ch'üan-chi (Peking, 1963), Vol. I, p. 316Google Scholar, quoted in Leys, Simon, Chinese Shadows (New York, 1978), p. 94.Google Scholar

142 Russell, , The Problem of China, pp. 224–5, 205–7Google Scholar. Note that one of the alternative titles Russell had suggested for this book was The White Peril! (Clark, , Life of Bertrand Russell, p. 407.)Google Scholar

143 Appendix, ‘The Lecture Society Welcomes,’ pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

144 Yat-sen, Sun, The Principle of Nationalism (Taipei, 1953), Lecture 6 (delivered 03 2, 1924), p. 60.Google Scholar

145 Russell, , The Problem of China, p. 215.Google Scholar

146 Appendix, ‘The Lecture Society Welcomes,’ pp. 6–7Google Scholar. Russell's world view coincided almost perfectly with China's: According to Y. W. Wong (Wang Yun-wu), Russell's views on the state and its relationship to the cause of war, were to be endorsed: the state was not to be abolished in an anarchic spasm, but rather, for civilian purposes of self-rule, it was to be made as large as possible, a world state. For Wong, the League of Nations would hopefully be that world state with enough military force to ensure peace. (Wong, Y. W., ‘Translator's Introduction to Mr. Russell's Principles of Social Reconstruction’ (Shanghai, 1921)Google Scholar, Russell Archives.) Wang Yun-wu was editor-in-chief of the Commercial Press, 1921–29, and head of the compilation and translation department (Boorman, , Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, p. 41).Google Scholar

147 Russell, , The Problem of China, p. 251, 213.Google Scholar

148 Russell, , ‘Farewell,’ p. 9.Google Scholar

149 Russell, , The Problem of China, p. 205Google Scholar. ‘The difficulty of combatting Japan has arisen mainly from the fact that hardly any Chinese politician can resist Japanese bribes.’ (pp. 223, 214.)Google Scholar

150 Meisner, , Li Ta-chao, pp. 42–3Google Scholar. Here again, Sun Yat-sen, although not an ‘intellectual’ in the May Fourth Movement, is an influential personage who sides with the ‘cultural chauvinists’. ‘European civilization is nothing but the rule of Might … Oriental Civilization is one of the rule of Right. … Of late a number of European and American scholars have begun to study oriental civilization and to realize that, while materially the Orient is far behind the Occident, morally the Orient is superior to the Occident.’ Hay, , Asian Ideas, p. 222Google Scholar. See also, Yat-sen, Sun, The Vital Problem of China, p. 162.Google Scholar

151 Benjamin, I.Schwartz, , Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge, 1951), p. 19, note 214.Google Scholar

152 Confucianism had no appeal for Russell. As Clark notes in his biography of Russell, even when nearly destitute in the 1920s, there were still a few things Russell refused to do: ‘I am sorry but I do not wish to do a book on Confucius. He bores me.’ Clark, , Life of Bertrand Russell, p. 410.Google Scholar

153 Russell, , ‘Farewell’ (Chinese), pp. 358–9.Google Scholar

154 Russell, , ‘First Impressions of China.’Google Scholar

155 Clark, , Life of Bertrand Russell, p. 389.Google Scholar

156 For an excellent account of Leibniz's view of China and Chinese philosophy, see Mungello, David E., Leibniz and Confucianism: The Search for Accord (Honolulu, 1977).Google Scholar

157 Tait, Katherine, My Father Bertrand Russell (New York, 1975), pp. 54–5.Google Scholar

158 Meng Chih, from China Institute, Columbia University, speaking at New England China Seminar (Cambridge, Mass.) Spring 1975.

159 Hay, , Asian Ideas, p. 238.Google Scholar

160 Russell, for example, spoke of socialism for China in a limited sense: as a governmental system of control in the economic sphere, not in the broader sense of a political system, nor of an ideology, nor of an economic system that implied redistribution. This was regrettable: Russell barely went beyond discussing the time-table for the introduction of state socialist control of the economy. He hardly mentioned class struggle except to say that he dreaded it; and he never suggested how to redistribute wealth, especially in the predominently rural hinterland. In fact, except for his warning to the Chinese not to antagonize the peasants as the Bolsheviks did, Russell ignored the rural character of the Chinese economy and policy. (See Russell, , ‘Farewell’ in English, p. 9Google Scholar. This was not translated from the English into Chinese by Fu T'ung.) Instead, in the traditional Marxist style, he emphasized the cities. But, of course, in the early 1920s, most Chinese socialists had themselves not yet considered the implications of rural dominance.

161 Ironically, Dewey supported guild socialism for China, which is far more than Russell did even though he was identified with guild socialism. For Dewey's position, see Keenan, , The Dewey Experiment in China, p. 48.Google Scholar

162 Clark, Life of Berlrand Russell, p. 388. Russell and Dewey shared a mutual dislike for each other. Russell wrote from China, ‘In 1914 I liked Dewey better than any other academic American: now I can't stand him.’ Dewey, whose feelings of dislike for Russell also began in China, reciprocated: Dewey sensed ‘a streak of cruelty in Russell and an aristocratic disdain for the sensibilities of other human beings outside his class.’ Ibid.

163 Keenan, , The Dewey Experiment in China, pp. 46—7.Google Scholar

164 Clopton, Robert W. and Ou, Tsuan-chen (editors and translators), John Dewey: Lectures in China, 1919–1920 (Honolulu, 1973), p. 11Google Scholar. Kuo also appointed the bulk of his faculty in education from Columbia Teacher's College. All promoted Dewey's education philosophy, and could be described as ‘liberal reformers.’ Keenan, , The Dewey Experiment, p. 57.Google Scholar

165 Keenan, , The Dewey Experiment, pp. 11, 14.Google Scholar

166 Yüan-jen, Chao, ‘With Bertrand Russell in China,’ Russell: The Journal of the Bertrand Russell Archives, No. 7 (Autumn 1972), pp. 14–17.Google Scholar

167 E.g., in one letter Chao asked Russell for $2000 for a ‘scholarship’ for the young woman he was supposed to have married but had never seen and did not want to marry. Yüan-jen, Chao, Letter to Russell (05 6, 1921), Peking. Russell Archives.Google Scholar

168 Yüan-jen, Chao, Letter to Peking Leader (08 7, 1921)Google Scholar, in response to August 4th editorial, Peking. Russell Archives. Among some of the publications of Russell's works translated into Chinese are: Lo-su Po-la-k'o chiang-yen-chi, Lo-su lun-wen-chi, Lo-su wu-la chiang-yen, and several others which are simply the complete translations of his books rather than collections. A letter to Russell from Fu T'ung informs him that several of his books have already been translated into Chinese and that the Commercial Press has plans to publish his works in China without ever asking him permission! (Letter, November 1920. Russell Archives.)

169 Yüan-jen, Chao, Letter to Peking Leader (08 7, 1921).Google Scholar

170 V. K. Ting (Ting Wen-chiang) was a renowned Chinese geologist and founder of the China Geological Survey. Russell allegedly described Ting as ‘The ablest man I met in China.’ Fu Ssu-nien (Fu Meng-chen), ‘Ting Wen-chiang i-ko jen-wu ti chi-pien huang-ts'ai’ (‘A few of the Glories of Ting Wen-chiang as a Personality’), Tu-li p'ing-lun, No. 189 (Febraury 23, 1936), p. 9, in Furth, Ting Wen-Chiang, p. 26. In turn, Russell, along with Harold Laski and H. G. Wells, was one of Ting's favorite British authors, perhaps because they shared a dubious perspective on the ability of European democracies to solve key problems of ‘economic privilege, nationalist rivalry, and technical change’ plaguing Europe in the 1930s. Furth, Ibid., p. 216.

171 Ibid., p. 6.

172 Ting, V. K., Letter to Peking Leader (08 5, 1921), Tientsin, in Russell Archives.Google Scholar

173 E.g., Russell's talk in China on ‘Democracy and Revolution’ dealt in great detail with the relationship between democracy, socialism, capitalism, and liberty, and with the ingredients of democracy. See Russell, , ‘Min-chu yü ko-ming,’ HCN, Vol. 8, No. 2 (10 1, 1920), pp. 209–16.Google Scholar

174 Brière, , Chinese Philosophy, p. 39.Google Scholar

175 Chou En-lai, Ch'en I, K'ang Sheng, Kuo Mo-jo, Li Li-san, Lin Piao, P'eng Chen, P'eng Te-huai, Teng Hsiao-p'ing, Tung Pi-wu, and Yeh Chien-ying, to mention a few!! However, Chang's position was in a sense a nominal one, as a token representative of the ‘Democractic League.’ Klein, Donald and Clark, Ann, Biographies of Republican Chinese, p. 1101Google Scholar. Boorman, Howard, Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, pp. 129–33Google Scholar. It should be noted, moreover, that he eventually was censured by the Chinese Communist government and removed from his teaching position at Yenching University.

176 Boorman, , Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, pp. 405–8Google Scholar. It should be mentioned, however, that in the end Chou Fo-hai's KMT credentials were discredited by Chiang K'ai-shek, who had him incarcerated after the war as a ‘national traitor’ because of his support of the Wang Ching-wei ‘collaborationist’ regime in Nanking during the war. Commenting on Chou Fo-hai's ephemeral political attachments, Brière concludes, ‘The man was not without merit, but he was a restless soul, incapable of settling himself down.’ (Chinese Philosphy, p. 21.)Google Scholar

177 Hay, , Asian Ideas East and West, p. 229.Google Scholar

178 Prior to the Communist victory in 1949, only about ten universities in China even had philosophy departments. Most Chinese students of philosophy completed their studies in West Germany, France, and the U.S. The paucity of students was apparently assured by the length of study required (four years) and the problem that philosophy students would have to possess no desire to make a living. See Brière, , Chinese Philosophy, p. 79.Google Scholar

179 For example, Li Shih-ts'en (b. 1892), considered one of China's foremost philosophers of the twentieth century, draws comparisons between Russell and Dewey on how to know what is ‘truth,’ and between Russell and Bergson. Most of his intellectual debts were to Bergson and Nietzsche. See Li Shih-ts'en lun-wen chi (A Collection of Li Shih-ts'en's Essays) (Shanghai, 1924), pp. 14–15, 44–50Google Scholar (‘Tu-wei yü Lo-su chih p'i-p'ing ti chieh-shao’) (‘A Critical Introduction to Dewey and Russell’). After an entirely superficial and confused analysis—he begins by presenting Russell's theory of ‘creative’ and ‘possessive’ impulses but never relates this to his conclusions on Russell's view of ‘truth’—he concludes that both men's philosophies have their problems, but that Bergson disposes of the weakness of both and combines their strong points. In this essay he also examines Russell's Scientific Method in Philosophy and his new science of logic.

Chang Shih-chao (b. 1881), in his major work Lo-chi chih-yao (Essentials of Logic) (Shanghai, 1943)Google Scholar, was intent on proving that ancient Chinese philosophy possessed some elements of logic, even though they had not yet been combined into a system of logic. Chin Yüeh-lin, however, followed the principles of Russell's mathematical philosophy. His book of algebraic formulae, Lo-chi (Logic) was first published in 1935 and reprinted in 1960. In his later years, Chin has held the position of Director of the Section of Logic in the Philosophy Research Institute.

180 Brière, , Chinese Philosophy, p. 86Google Scholar; and Chan-po, Kuo, Chin wu-shih nien chung-kuo ssu-hsiang shih, p. 314.Google Scholar

181 Furth, , Ting Wen-chiang, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

182 Russell was interested in the relationship between experience and the scientific viewpoint, and he believed experience and empirical knowledge were based on perceptual and sense data. When he lectured in China, he argued that science could be related to experience by our ability to make scientific entities solely out of sense data. Later Russell found this analysis unsatisfactory. As for mathematics and logic, Russell placed them in a special category, whose truth is ‘analytic.’ Unlike the natural sciences, whose ‘truth’ was discoverable through perception and was therefore empirical, the ‘truth’ of mathematics and logic was not at all dependent upon observation or experiment. In his Principia Mathematica (1910–13), Russell ‘reduced’ mathematics to logic and defined mathematics as part of logic to the extent that ‘it was part of an all-inclusive system whose initial postulates were propositions of logic.’ See Russell, Bertrand, On the Philosophy of Science (New York, 1965), pp. 3–4, 43–4.Google Scholar

183 Mon-lin, Chiang, Tides from the West, p. 247.Google Scholar

184 Ibid., pp. 250–1.

185 Yu-wei, Hsieh, Appendix, p. 147Google Scholar, in Lin, Ho, Tang-tat chung-kuo che-hsüeh (Contemporary Chinese Philosophy) (no p.d., 1941)Google Scholar, quoted in Brière, , Chinese Philosophy, p. 86.Google Scholar

186 Furth, , Ting Wen-chiang, pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

187 Shih, Hu, The Development of the Logical Method in Ancient China (Shanghai, 1922), pp. 2, 4–5Google Scholar. According to Hu Shih, the controversy between the Sung and Ming schools, which determined the ‘whole history of modern Chinese philosophy from the 11th century to the present day has centered on the interpretation of a little book, the Ta Hsüeh (The Great Learning or Learning for Adults), 1750 words of unknown authority,’ and whose spirit was ‘purely rationalistic and moralistic.’ Hu Shih, Ibid., pp. 4, 6.

188 Ibid., p. 67.

189 Ibid., p. 9. Actually, Hu Shih advocated ‘New-Mohism,’ largely because he questioned the authenticity of Books 32–37 of the Moh Tse, whose logical methods, he said, could not have been written by Mo Tih. Neo-Mohism was based on these books of questionable authenticity. See Shih, Hu, Part III: ‘The Logic of Moh Tih and His School,’ pp. 53–130, especially pp. 83 and 128–9Google Scholar. Interestingly, Moh Tih's theory of knowledge has many parallels to Russell's described in Our Knowledge of the External World and Problems of Philosophy.

190 Mon-lin, Chiang, Tides from the West, p. 248.Google Scholar

191 Furth, Ting Wen-chiang, p. 133. As Furth has noted, ‘Little in Chinese tradition offered any preparation for the ideas of Western science. It is commonly remarked that traditional Confucianism is “humanistic”: devoted to the study of “men and affairs.” … This dominant scholarly tradition left educated Chinese little scope for the observation of nature and even less incentive for practical invention …’. Ibid., p. 7.

192 Ibid., p. 12. Furth gives a partial analysis of the Chinese method of reasoning: ‘Their preferred methods for making and justifying assertions followed entirely plausible paths. First and foremost, they appealed to history: what had been asserted in the past had a privileged claim to respect. Original thinkers often justified their innovations by manipulating and restructuring accepted concepts of the past. Second, they used the method of syncretism: people preferred to see the holistic aspect of things, to distinguish concepts, only subsequently to amalgamate rather than to choose among them. Finally, there was the practice of patterning: of arranging concepts in patterns of primarily aesthetic appeal, where the ordering principle might be classificatory, numerological, rhetorical, or built out of richly suggestive analytical correspondences.’ Ibid., p. 9.

193 Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, ‘Ou-yu hsin-ying lu’ (‘Impressions of Travels in Europe’), Yin-ping-shih ho-chi, chüan-chi V, in Grieder, , Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance, pp. 130–1Google Scholar. Also see references in Levenson, , Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, p. 200Google Scholar, and Brière, , Chinese Philosophy, p. 27.Google Scholar

194 Liang Shu-ming, Tung-hsi wen-hua chi ch'i che-hsüeh, in Grieder, , Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance, pp. 140—1.Google Scholar

195 Furth, , Ting Wen-chiang, p. 133Google Scholar. This debate did not really begin until 1923, after Russell's departure. It was followed by the debate over the relative merits of Eastern spiritual culture’ as opposed to ‘Western materialistic culture.’ See Keenan, , The Dewey Experiment in China, p. 92.Google Scholar

196 Lin, Mousheng Hsitien, ‘Recent Intellectual Movements in China,’ China Institute Bulletin, 3.1:9 (10 1938)Google Scholar, referenced in Furth, , Ting Wen-chiang, pp. 133–4.Google Scholar

197 Furth, , Ting Wen-chiang, p. 134.Google Scholar

198 Lin added, ‘ … the Chinese mind cannot develop a scientific method; for the scientific method, besides being analytical, always involves an amount of stupid drudgery, while the Chinese believe in flashes of common sense and insight. And inductive reasoning, carried over to human relationships … often results in a form of stupidity not so rare in American universities. … No Chinese could possibly be stupid enough to write a dissertation on ice-cream, and after a series of careful observations, announce the staggering conclusion that “the primary function of sugar (in the manufacture of ice-cream) is to sweeten it.”’ Yü-t'ang, Lin, My Country and My People, pp. 86, 88, 89–90.Google Scholar

199 Russell, , ‘The Cause of Chaos,’ pp. 1, 6–7.Google Scholar

200 Russell, , ‘Farewell’ (Chinese), p. 365.Google Scholar

201 Furth, , Ting Wen-chiang, p. 134Google Scholar, and Brière, , Chinese Philosophy, pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

202 ‘Manifesto of the Third National Congress of the Kuomintang (March 28, 1929),’ in Shieh, Milton, The Kuomintang, p. 146.Google Scholar

203 Chiang Mon-lin's statement (p. 124) that ‘It was due to Russell that young minds began to get interested in principles of social reconstruction, which roused them against both religion and imperialism,’ is highly inaccurate. First, the exploration of the question of social reconstruction was the major theme of the May Fourth Period, and Russell was invited to China in part because his social philosophy responded to the questions the Chinese were already asking. Second, Chinese antipathy toward religion long antedated Russell's visit. (The Boxer Rebellion in 1900 was in part an anti-Christian movement; and anti-Confucianism, to the extent that Confucianism may be called a religion, was part of the fabric of the May Fourth Movement.) And third, hostility toward imperialism was as old as nineteenth-century gun-boat diplomacy and was exacerbated further by events of the early twentieth century, including particularly the results of the Versailles Peace Settlement of 1919. The Chinese did not need Russell to stimulate their ire against imperialism.

204 Hay, , Asian Ideas East and West, p. 188, note 7.Google Scholar

205 Metzger, Thomas A., Escape from Predicament: Nee-Confucianism and China's Evolving Political Culture (New York, 1977), p. 9Google Scholar. Fung Yu-lan studied at Columbia University and was influenced by American Neo-realism, pragmatism, Marxism and Chu Hsi (i.e., neo-Confucianism). Brière, , Chinese Philosophy, p. 38.Google Scholar

206 Jen-chih, Tu, ‘Po-teh-yang Lo-su’ (‘Bertrand Russell’), in Jen-chih, Tu (ed.), Hsien-dai Hsi-fang chu-ming che-hsüeh chia shu-ping (A Review of Recent Famous Western Philosophers) (Peking, 1980), pp. 152–63.Google Scholar