Manifesto on the Founding of the Xiang River
Review (July 14,1919)
Since the great call for “world revolution,” the movement for the “liberation of
mankind” has pressed forward fiercely, and today we must change our old attitudes
toward issues that in the past we did not question, toward methods we would not use,
and toward so many words we have been afraid to utter. Question the unquestionable.
Dare to do the unthinkable. Do not shrink from saying the unutterable. No force can
stop a tide such as this; no one can fail to be subjugated by it.
What is the greatest problem in the world? The greatest problem is that of getting
food to eat. What is the greatest force? The greatest force is that of the union of the
popular masses. What should we not fear? We should not fear heaven. We should not
fear ghosts. We should not fear the dead. We should not fear the bureaucrats. We
should not fear the warlords. We should not fear the capitalists.
Since the Renaissance, thought has been liberated, and the question “How should
mankind live?” has become a great issue. From the examination of this issue some
have concluded that “man should live like that” or “man should not live like this.”
Some scholars have suggested, and a majority of the popular masses have agreed
with, reforms in many domains, which have been implemented or are about to be
implemented.
In the area of religion, the Reformation resulted in freedom of religious belief. In
literature, the literature of the aristocracy, classical literature, dead literature, has given
way to a literature of the common people, contemporary literature, a literature imbued
with vitality. In the political arena, autocracy has been replaced by representative
government, and a restricted suffrage has been replaced by universal suffrage. In the
realm of society, the dark society of the dictatorship of a minority class has been
transformed into an enlightened society in which all the people can freely develop. In
education, we now believe in education for the common people, and in economics, we
now believe in equality in the fruits of labor. In the area of thought, we have moved
forward to pragmatism, and internationally, there is now a League of Nations.
In a word, these various reforms represent simply “emancipation from oppression.”
The basic ideology of these various forms of resistance to oppression is that of “democracy.” (Compare the different renderings for democracy [in Chinese], pingmin zhuyi [the rule of the common people],5 minben zhuyi [the people as
the basis], minzhu zhuyi [people’s rule — the usual term today], shumin zhuyi [the rule
of the common people]). Religious oppression, literary oppression, political oppression,
social oppression, educational oppression, economic oppression, intellectual oppression,
peasants.

and international oppression no longer have the slightest place in this world. All must
be overthrown under the great cry of democracy.
There are two views about how they will be overthrown, one extreme, one moderate.
We must make a choice between the two. (1) We accept the fact that the oppressors
are people, are human beings like ourselves, and that the abuse of oppressive power is
an unconscious error or misfortune on their parts, an infection or hereditary disease
passed on to them from the old society and old thought. (2) We use oppression to
overthrow oppression, with the result that we still have oppression. This would be
not only self-contradictory, but also totally ineffectual, as witness the European war
between the [Triple] Alliance and the [Triple] Entente,6 and China’s war between the
North and the South.7
Thus it is our position that as regards scholarship, we must uphold thorough study.
Unfettered by any of the old views or superstitions, we must seek the truth. In dealing
with people, we advocate uniting the popular masses, and toward the oppressors, we
believe in continuing the “sincere admonishment movement.” We put into practice the
“cry of revolution” — the cry for bread, the cry for freedom, the cry for equality —
the “bloodless revolution.” Thus we will not provoke widespread chaos, nor pursue that
ineffectual “revolution of bombs,” or “revolution of blood.”
The international oppressor staring us in the face is Japan. The effective way of
dealing directly and indirectly with the Japanese oppressors is through such movements
as boycotting classes, merchants’ strikes, workers’ strikes, and boycotting Japanese
products.
As for the Xiang River, it is but one river in the eastern part of the Eastern Hemisphere of the planet earth. Its waters run clear, its course is long. The popular masses
living on and near the river are simple untutored folk who understand little of the
affairs of the world. They do not have a highly organized society. The population is
scattered, each person making his own living, knowing only of what immediately relates
to himself and his life, in a very short span of time. Most have never even dreamed of
life in a community, or of long-range perspectives. Their politics does not include nego6 This was the term which had been used by Mao’s mentor, Li Dazhao, as the title for a long
article on the subject in 1918. Li Dazhao (1889–1927), zi Shouchang, a native of Hebei, studied political
economy at Waseda University in Tokyo from 1913 to 1916, and during this period contributed to Zhang
Shizhao’s Tiger Magazine. In 1918, he accepted an appointment as head of the Beijing University library,
and in this capacity he provided employment for Mao as a library assistant during Mao’s first visit to
Beijing in the winter of 1918–1919. Li had become a member of the editorial board of New Youth
in 1916, and in this periodical he published, in 1918, an article entitled “The Victory of Bolshevism.”
Thereafter, he evolved rapidly toward a Marxist position, and was, with Chen Duxiu, one of the two
principal founding fathers of the Chinese Communist Party. His intellectual and personal influence on
Mao remained strong.
the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, and the Triple Entente of France, England,
and Russia. Since it is now common to refer to the “Allies” (including the United States) and the “Central
Powers,” we have sometimes translated in subsequent texts “Allies” where Mao has “Entente” (Xiehe).