Themes in intellectual history: May Fourth and after

Many factors combined to create the great intellectual upsurge of 1919 and the early 1920s that in the Chinese fashion has been given a neutral numerical designation as the 'Five-four' movement. The main focus of this chapter is on themes and issues which were to dominate the discourse of the intellectual stratum during the May Fourth period and after. The grandest and most enduring theme of all is the theme of historical or evolutionary progress as first interpreted in the writings of the great pioneers like K'ang Yu-wei, Yen Fu, and T'an Ssu-t'ung. The Chinese Revolution of 1911 produced no social revolution. One of the more significant conflicts which emerged out of the winds of doctrine of the May Fourth period was the debate between Hu Shih, Li Ta-chao and others concerning the question of 'problems versus -isms'. Another outcome of the May Fourth movement was the whole 'neo-traditionalist' reaction against the 'totalistic iconoclasm' of the movement.