Of Chronology, Failure, and Fidelity: When did the May Fourth Movement End?

The essay posits the question of the end of May Fourth as a properly political sequence. If we consider May Fourth as a political movement, asking how it ends implies asking what kind of political subjects and political organizations were active then and ceased to be active at a certain point in time. Asking when and how the May Fourth movement ended implies, therefore, asking what ended. The essay analyzes a series of statements and actions signaling the "end" or the "defeat" of May Fourth in order to question whether there were collective practices, locations, and categories proper to the May Fourth period and how they got exhausted. Two elements appear to be crucial: the organizational structure of the xuehui and the category of "student."