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STUDIES ON REPUBLICAN CHINA IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY Peter M. Kuhfus with the co-operation of Gudrun Wacker 1. Introduction: Philosophy and Politics in the 1930's 2. Bibliographical listings 2.1 Books 2.2 Articles 2.3 Habilitation theses 2.4 Doctoral dissertations 2.5 M.A. theses 3. Work in progress 3.1 Research projects 3.2 Books and articles 3.3 Dissertations and thes~s 1. Introduction: Philosophy and Politics in the 1930's •elimination of philosophy• (che-hsueh hsiao-mieh) •tormal logic• (hsing-shih lo-chi) surrender of the Chinese Communist Party's independence under the conditions of the United Front with Kuomintang: destruction of the CCP Kuomintang •The elimination of philosophy (che-hsueh hsiao-mieh)• as a symbol for •the surrender of the Chinese Communist Party's independence under the conditions of the United Front with the Kuomintang• or even for •the destruction of the CCP•a •formal logic (hsing-shih lo-chi)• as a symbol for •Kuomintang•: these are but two entries from a seven-page •glossary• (pp. 226-232) provided in the final chapter of Werner Meissner's book Philosophy and Politics in China. The Controversy Over Dialectical Materialism in the 1930s (Munchen 1986) (no. 10 in the bibliographical listings below). For me, this book is the intriguing contribution to the field of Republican published in the FRG during the period 1986/87: therefore, I have chosen it for review, although I would not hesitate to admit that this could be regarded as a somewhat subjective choice. 94 Meissner commences with the observation that •dialectical materialism (pien-cheng wei-wu lun)• constitutes •the philosophical basis of the Chinese Communist Party's ideology• (p. 9). In his study, he undertakes •to uncover the sources from which Chinese dialectical materialism once originated• (p. 9). He traces these sources to Shanghai where a philosophical controversy evolved between 1934 and 1939 among •leftist intellectuals•, with Ai Siqi (Ai Ssuch 'i/Li Ch'ung-chi) and Ye Qing (Yeh Ch'ing/Jen Cho-hsuan) as the pivotal figures and opponents, and also involving Chen Boda (Ch'en Po-ta) and others. tends Meissner delineates three principal goals for his study. He in- -to illuminate the background of the controversy over •New Philosophy•, with the ultimate purpose of reconstructing the formation of •chinese dialectical materialism• into a coherent Weltanschauung: to ascertain which functions the intra-Party decision-making lation to society, and this world view assumes in process as well as in re- - to offer an answer to the question of the relevance of •dialectical materialism• in the broader context of the perception of Western thought in China. The first, i.e. the background issue is covered in two fairly brief chapters. Chapter one (pp. 33-50) depicts the •eevelopment of Soviet Philosophy•, particularly during the second half of the 1920's until the early 1930s; chapter two (pp. 51-72) relates the emergence of the United Front in China under the impact of Japanese aggression, centering on the period between the Xi'an Incident(l936) and Mao's intra-Party ascendancy over Wang Ming and the Comintern group. At first glance these two developments appear to be entirely unrelated, however, in their particular historical constellation they provide the essential, and complementary, roots of the •philosophical controversy• in China: the emergence of the United Front created a situation which stifled open articulation of conflicting political concepts and positions. Consequentially the participants in the United Front were forced to resort to •languages• which did not expressly state their true intentions and aims but functioned on different principles• either purposely vague and tractable formulations, or a special symbol-system language, namely •dialectical philosophy•, as it entered the Chinese intellectual cosmos in the form of translated Soviet works. The assumption that with its entry into the Chinese intellectual cosmos, •dialectical philosophy• underwent a drastic change in 95 quality constitutes both the starting point and the foremost result of Meissner's study: he argues that none of the intellectuals whose writings he examined was motivated by a desire to comprehend dialectical philosophy in its own right, i.e. in its inherent philosophical substance and depth. Instead the terms and concepts were...

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