PA CHIN AND HIS WRITINGS CHINESE YOUTH BETWEEN THE TWO REVOLUTIONS HARVARD EAST ASIAN SERIES, 28 The East Asian Research Center at Harvard University administers projects designed to further scholarly understanding of China, Korea, Japan, and adjacent areas. PA CHIN AND HIS WRITINGS CHINESE YOUTH BETWEEN THE TWO REVOLUTIONS BY OLGA LANG HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS I967 © Copyright 1967 by the President and Fellows o£ Harvard College All rights reserved Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London Preparation of this volume was aided by a grant from the Ford Foundation Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 67-17314 Printed in the United States of America то THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER FOREWORD The aspirations and self-image of youth were essential ingre- dients of the Chinese revolution from 1919 to 1949, and the fiction of this era in the new vernacular style has left us a major clue to the moods and motives of the rank and file of revolutionists. The novelist Pa Chin was a leading writer of this period. His widely read stories led the literary attack successively on the traditional family system, on the repressive measures of the Kuomintang regime, and finally against the Japanese aggression. An optimist, writing for youth topically and dramatically, extolling self-sacri- fice and duty over love. Pa Chin gave young Chinese intellectuals an ideal image of themselves and their role in society, and so prepared them to participate in the revolution. His novels ideal- ize the rebellion of youth against family authority and the clan- destine propaganda work of student groups against the regime in power. His young characters find themselves by sacrifice. But their culture and society give them no real sanction for an asser- tive individualism, no basis for defiance of their peer group, and in the end they enter rather easily into a new conformity. Olga Lang makes plain that Pa Chin's writing was animated by his faith in that most idealistic and self-sacrificing of revolu- tionary credos, anarchism. His young characters break loose from the tyranny of family, in situations reminiscent of those long since stereotyped in the Hung low meng (Dream of the Red Chamber), but then they give themselves up to the new cause of revolution. Even without the family system, their acceptance of duty at the cost of personal frustration seems as fated as ever. Mrs. Lang's analyses of Pa Chin's plots show them to be full of suffering and struggle, with a good deal of death and suicide. Pa Chin is always serious, often extremely sentimental, even lachry- mose, and seldom humorous, a man dedicated to destroying pres- ent evils so as to remake the world in ways naively hoped for but not specified. vii vili FOREWORD Olga Lang's preparation for this study is without question unique. She was born and grew up in Russia. Her own family gave her a background in Russian and French literature and an early interest in the populist movement. In her early youth she studied Russian and European history and literature at the uni- versities of Leningrad and Moscow. Even in high school she had read widely in the history of the Russian and international labor movements, and she studied this subject thoroughly after the Revolution, when she worked several years for Russian trade un- ions and wrote extensively on the international labor movement for various publications. All this has given her insight into the influence of international anarchism and Russian populism upon Pa Chin's political ideas and of Russian and French writers upon his literary work. Living in China from 1935 to 1937, she studied Chinese and did research in Peiping on the Chinese family sys- tem (see her book, Chinese Family and Society [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946]). At the same time, she had an opportunity to meet many Chinese students and so became aware of the great influence Pa Chin had upon them. From a mastery of Pa Chin's voluminous output, Mrs. Lang has reconstructed the experiences of his early life, mapped out the phases of his literary career, appraised the influences upon him, and given us a bird's-eye view of the major writings with which he helped to shape the ideals of Chinese students who sup- plied the cadres of the rival revolutionary parties. While this pioneer work makes no pretense to be the last word on its subject, it opens the way to a clearer and much-needed view of the per- sonal concerns and aspirations of China's revolutionary genera- tion. This has significance now for all of us. East Asian Research Center Harvard University ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to acknowledge with gratitude the help I received from many sources. My deep thanks are due to Professor C. Martin Wilbur for his valuable suggestions and constructive criticism beginning with the early stages of my work, and to Professor Chi-chen Wang who gave me the benefit of his intimate knowledge of Chinese life and literature and carefully checked many of my translations. I also appreciate the help of Professors Donald Keene, William Th. de Barry, Leon Stilman, C. T. Hu, Chiang Yeh, John Meskill, and Ivan Morris, who read my manuscript and made many pertinent remarks. I am very grateful to professors Benjamin J. Schwartz and Ezra F. Vogel, whose encouragement and valuable comments helped me to bring this study into final shape. I have greatly profited from the sympathetic cooperation of the director of the project Men and Politics in Modern China at Columbia Univer- sity, Mr. Howard L. Boorman, who put at my disposal the rich files of the project and helped me with his advice. I am indebted to my friends Mr. Tsing Yuan, Dr. Harriet Mills, Mr. Lu Kuang-huan, Mr. Ku Kung-k'ai, Miss Loretta Pan, and Miss Ida Pruitt who checked my translations and helped me to understand some problems of Chinese life. I greatly appreciate the advice and suggestions of my friends and colleagues Dr. Sophia M. Robison, Mrs. Sophie Erlich, Mr. Thompson Bradley, and Dr. Monroe Beardsley who have read parts of my manuscript. Miss Nym Wales kindly granted permission to use her unpub- lished biography of Ting Ling. For editorial assistance I am indebted to Mrs. Cornelia Mills, Mrs. Lea Kisselgoff, and the staff of the East Asian Research Cen- ter at Harvard University. My warm thanks go to the staff of the East Asiatic Collection at Columbia University and to Mr. Donald Klein for their untiring cooperation and kindness. I received financial help from the Advisory Committee for the ix χ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS research project Men and Politics in Modern China at Columbia University and from the Faculty Research Committee at Swarth- more College. Above all I am grateful to the Director of the East Asian Re- search Center at Harvard University, Dr. John K. Fairbank, whose encouragement, wise advice, and editorial assistance made the pub- lication of this book possible. Olga Lang Swarthmore, Pennsylvania October 1966