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| 1919, March |
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| The Communist International (Comintern) held its first congress, charged with the task of coordinating the world revolution. At its second congress (July 1920), it was argued that nonindustrialized, agrarian countries might skip the capitalist stage of social development by forging ties with “bourgeois democratic” parties and if supported by the Soviet Union. | 1 |
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| April 30 |
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| Despite anticipation in China to the contrary, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) came to agreement with his counterparts in Great Britain and France to allow the transfer of former German holdings in Shandong to Japan. When news that the delegates to the Versailles Peace Conference would act accordingly reached China (May 1), a sense of betrayal spread among the urban classes. | 2 |
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| May 1 |
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| In a special issue on Marxism in the journal New Youth, Li Dazhao published his essay “My Marxist Views,” thus becoming the first Chinese to declare for Marxism. | 3 |
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| May 4 |
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| Demonstrations exploded in Beijing; some 3,000 students gathered at Tiananmen Square and marched toward the foreign legation quarter. Like demonstrations occurred elsewhere as well. The homes of officials involved in negotiations with the Japanese or regarded as pro-Japanese were attacked, and several men were beaten unconscious. The Chinese delegates refused to sign the peace accords (June 28). Boycotts of Japanese goods ensued. | 4 |
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| June |
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| Students from other cities met in Beijing to form a student union of the Republic of China. | 5 |
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| July |
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| The Soviet Union, through Lev M. Karakhan (1889–1937), renounced all special rights in Manchuria and all secret treaties negotiated during the tsarist era, including all indemnities. | 6 |
| The New Culture movement, which began in the mid-1910s and is often considered coterminous with the May Fourth movement, surged ahead in the months following the incidents of May 4, 1919. Its proponents were younger professors, many at Beijing University and most of whom had studied overseas: Chen Duxiu (1879–1942), a dean at Beijing University; Li Dazhao, the librarian; Cai Yuanpei (1868–1948), the chancellor; Hu Shi (1891–1962), professor of philosophy; and Lu Xun (pseud., Zhou Shuren, 1881–1936), the finest short story writer of the era; and many others. They published numerous journals and magazines, although Xin Qingnian (New Youth) was considered the core publication of the movement. Lu Xun published his two most famous pieces—“Diary of a Madman” (1919) and “The True Story of Ah Q” (1921)—in it. Proponents of this movement called for an end to the social and customary restrictions placed on people's lives by Confucianism, patriarchy, and other Chinese practices out of touch with the modern world. They were especially outspoken on the issue of gender equality, in favor of coeducation, and opposed to arranged marriages; women entered Beijing University for the first time in 1920. These thinkers wrote in, and vigorously argued that all publications should be written in, the vernacular language, not the extremely complex literary language. Already by 1919, though, divisions were becoming apparent within the movement. Li and Chen became Communists, Lu Xun a nonparty leftist, and Hu a Deweyan liberal. In the summer of 1919 Hu assailed Chen and other radicals in an article entitled “Study More Problems, Talk Less of ‘Isms.’” Between 1919 and 1923 such eminent figures as John Dewey (1859–1952), Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), Albert Einstein (1879–1955), Margaret Sanger (1876–1966), and Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) all visited China. | 7 |
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