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Ai Ssu-ch'i: The apostle of Chinese Communism

Part one: His life and works

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Abstract

Ai Ssu-ch'i is a little known but very important figure in the introduction of Marxism-Leninism into China. This first article provides a brief biography of Ai Ssu-ch'i as well as a detailed account of his activities as teacher, author and propagandist. Among his other services to the cause of Marxism-Leninism in China, one has to stress Ai Ssu-ch'i's systematic opposition to Yeh Ch'ing and to the non-Communist interpretation of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's ‘Three Principles of the People’. (cf.SST 10 (1970), 138–166.)

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References

  1. Ai Ssu-ch'i,Philosophy for the Masses (Shanghai; Sheng-Ho, 1936), 4th edition, preface p. 7 (the page numbers ofPhilosophy for the Masses referred to later are from the fourth edition unless otherwise indicated); Rev. O. Brière,Fifty Years of Chinese Philosophy, 1898–1948, tr. from French by Laurence G. Thompson and edited with introduction by Dennis J. Doolin, New York, Praeger, 1965, p. 78.

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  2. Biographical Dictionary of Republican China, edited by Howard L. Boorman, New York, Columbia University Press, 1967, Vol. 1, p. 1 andWho's Who in Communist China, Union Research Institute, Hong-Kong, 1966, vol. 1, p. 1, gave Ai's birth's date as 1905. But the latter corrected it to 1910 in its 1969 edition. TheBiographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism 1921–1965, edited by Donald W. Klein & Anne B. Clark, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1971. Vol. 1, p. 1 gave the correct date.

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  3. Perlebery, Max,Who's Who in Modern China — 1911–1953, Hong-Kong, Ye Olde Printerie, 1954.

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  4. Boorman, Howard L. (ed.),Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (see footnote 4), vol. 1. p. 1.

  5. “The ideological development of Marxism-Leninism must have been very strong in Japan in the 1920's, since in view of the multi-volume works, like the 1931–33 Symposium on the Development of Japanese Capitalism,... Japan was probably ahead of all countries except Russia and Germany”, so observed Mr. Edwin O. Reischauer of Harvard University, inEast Asia-The Modern Transformation, by John K. Fairbank, Edwin O. Reischauer and Albert M. Craig, Boston, Houghton-Mifflin, 1965, p. 551.

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  7. With the exception of very few essays he put in theEssays on New Philosophy (See footnote 11), he acknowledged that most of his efforts had been made in the popularization of the New Philosophy. SeeEssays on New Philosophy, Preface, p. 1.2

  8. Ssu-ch'i,Essays on New Philosophy, Shanghai, Ch'en-kuang, 1936, 1st ed., preface, p. 1.

  9. SeeStudy and Life, vol.1, No. 1, ‘Inauguration Edition’, Fa-K'an-t'zu, p. 3 and Vol.4, No. 10, p. 522.

  10. SeeStudy and Life, vol.3, No. 7, p. 318, vol.4, no. 2, p. 24 and no. 10, p. 524.

  11. Chiang Kai-shek,Soviet Russia in China, Revised Ed., N.Y., Noonday, 1965, pp. 49–51.

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  12. Snow, Edgar,Red China Today, Revised and Updated Edition ofThe Other Side of the River, New York, Vintage Books, 1971, p. 105.

  13. Snow, Edgar, ‘A Conversation With Mao Tse-tung’, inLife 70, no. 16, April 30, 1971, p. 47.

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  14. Ai Ssu-ch'i, phM, pp. 68–76.

  15. Ai Ssu-ch'i, phM, preface, p. 13 andStudy and Life 4, no. 12, p. 613.

  16. Ai Ssu-ch'i and Cheng I-li (trans.),Outline of the New Philosophy, Shanghai, Sheng-Ho, 1936, preface, p. 3.

  17. Yeh Ch'ing, a rival Marxist at the time, ridiculed Ai Ssu-ch'i in the following words: “Did he really study all the works ofNew Philosophy [published] in the world? Definitely no: Whom could he deceive? All the guidance he had in his writing are from [but two books], theManual of Dialectical Materialism [by G. S. Tymjanskij and others, translated into Chinese by Li Ta from the Russian language] and theOutline of the New Philosophy.” In hisControversies Over the New Philosophy, Shanghai, Hsin-K'en, 1936 p. 18, and, “His sources [literally — his bases] are not, however, the octrines and literature of the New Philosophy but or two popularized and mediocre instructional texts — those things written by fellows below the third rank such asOutline of New Philosophy andManual of Dialectical Materialism.” In hisStruggles in the Development of New Philosophy, Shanghai, Chen-Li Press, 1937, p. 7.

  18. SeeStudy and Life 4, no. 10, p. 613.

  19. SeeKnowing Monthly 1, no. 1, p. 15.

  20. Ai Ssu-ch'i,ibid., p. 6.

  21. Yeh Ch'ing,Struggles in the Development of New Philosophy (see note 19), preface, pp. 3–4.

  22. Ibid., p. 6.

  23. Brière,op. cit., p. 83.

  24. Schram, Stuart R.,The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung, New York, Praeger, 1969, revised ed., pp. 85–9.

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  26. It is also likely that Mao's speeches were primarily inspired by theOutline of the New Philosphy, then just translated by Ai and Cheng, for a number of important passages in Mao's Essays in question are identical to those in the ONPh. Karl A. Wittfogel, one of the very few experts who had noticed Mao's intellectual dependency, pointed to the correlation between the speeches of Mao and the ONPh in his ‘Some Remarks on Mao's Handling of Concepts and Problems of Dialectics’ inStudies in Soviet Thought 3, 4 (December, 1963), p. 264.

  27. Wang Chien-ming,History of the Chinese Communist Party, Taipei, Cheng-Chung, 1965, vol. III, p. 281.

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  28. Brière,op. cit., p. 83.

  29. Ai Ssu-ch'i, ‘Concerning the Understanding of the Three Principles of the People’, (Kuan-yü san-min-chu-i-ti jen-shih) in Lu Foet al. (eds.),The Three Principles of the People and Communism (San-min-chu-i yü kung ch'an chu-i), Hong Kong, Chen-Li Publishers, 1947, p. 72.

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  30. Brière,op. cit., ‘ p. 35.

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  31. Chang ching-lu (ed.),Supplementary Historical Materials on Chinese Publishing (Chung-kuo ch'u-pan shih-liao pu pien), Peking, Chung-Hua, 1957, p. 448–9.

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  32. Kwok, D. W. Y.,Scientism in Chinese Thought: 1900–1950, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1965, p. 192 and Klein, Donald W. and Clark, Anne B. (see note 4), p. 2.

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  33. Ai Ssu-ch'i, ‘The Leninist Era in the Battle Front of Philosophy — In Commemoration of the Nineteenth Anniversary of the Death of Lenin’ (Che-hsüeh chan-hsiang shang-ti lieh-ning shih-tai) inLiberation Daily (Chieh-Fang Jih-pao), Feb. 22, 1943, p. 4.

  34. Mao Tse-tung,Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Peking, Foreign Language Press, 1965, Vol. III, p. 36.

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  35. Ibid.,, p. 42.

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  36. Ibid.,, p. 54.

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  37. Ibid.,, p. 42.

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  38. Ch'en Po-ta,On the Thought of Mao Tse-tung (Lun mao tse-tung ssu-hsiang), Shanghai, Chung-Hua, 1952.

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  39. Klein, Donald W. and Clark, Anne B.op. cit. (see note 4), p. 2.

  40. For instance, a book namedA Manual of Popular Logic, (Lo-ch'i t'ung-hsüeh tupen), Peking, Chung-Kuo Ch'ing-Nien Press, written by five ‘logicians’ for high school students or the cadres with such a level of education without Ai's participation, is better without him; by the late 1950's the controversies about formal and dialectical logic were centered around Chou Ku-ch'eng on the one hand and a dozen experts on the other, without Ai's participation. Chou grouped together his own twenty essays and published them asFormal Logic and the Dialectics (Hsiung-shih lo-ch'i yü pien-cheng-fa), Peking, San-Liang, 1962.

  41. Red Flag, No. 4, 1958; 4, 1959; 9, 1965.

  42. The China News Agency, March 25, 1966.

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  1. Ignatius J. H. Ts'ao
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Ts'ao, I.J.H. Ai Ssu-ch'i: The apostle of Chinese Communism. Studies in Soviet Thought 12, 2–36 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01044306

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