The Making of The New Culture Movement: A Discursive History

This article argues that the “New Culture movement” as represented in current historiography was by and large constructed from 1923 to 1924. Wenhua yundong (cultural movement) was originally a common phrase referring to the post–May Fourth awakening to the power of modern mass communication. Xin wenhua yundong (New Culture movement) as a proper noun first emerged in Chen Duxiu’s polemics against alternative visions of cultural modernity in 1920. Propagandists of the Chinese Communist Party later, in 1923, turned Chen’s vision of cultural reform into a historical event of the late 1910s. Invested with an exaggerated sense of uniqueness and historicity, “Xin wenhua yundong” was cast as the sole source of reformist energy in the early Republic and the native precursor of China’s revolution. This mythological representation displaced collective memories of uncertainty and ambiguity in the years after World War I, and it has continued to shape understandings of China’s modern history.