China and the West

Tian, Han. Xiang xian shi zu yi xi ju da shi men zai xue xi. In : Guang ming ri bao ; July 27 (1956). = Bernard Shaw : master of realist drama. [ID D27921]. [Ansprache zum 100jährigen Geburtstag von George Bernard Shaw].
Shaw is one of the great realist writers since Shakespeare. The mantle of Ibsen has fallen upon him, and he has continued the Ibsen tradition and developed it better than anyone else. He has been called the present-day Shakespeare. And after he exposed the real aspect of capitalism in his 'unpleasant' plays, his enemies held him up for castigation as 'that hateful Ibsenite'.
Shaw himself was a writer blessed with longevity like his own 'Methuselah'. His natural life covered almost a century while his creative life was spread over seventy years. Thus he was an eye-witness of the many developments in Europe since the turn of the last century.
Owing to his having read Marx's Kapital in early life, he cast a penetrating gaze upon these developments and the social reasons behind them. Shaw possessed a many-sided talent, especially keen on the satirical side, and in addition, he accepted the vivid and lively form of the drama as developed by the English people, with the result that his satirical plays are inimitable. When he died in 1950 people deeply regretted the immense loss of the 'most courageous thinker in Europe' – to use Gorki's phrase. He left with us over fifty plays, several novels, and at least a hundred articles on political and artistic subjects. It cannot be said, in this enormous body of work covering a whole lifetime, that every item shines like a jewel, but without any doubt whatever, the jewels form the main part. As far as his political thought is concerned, he has trod the tortuous path of reform which has resulted in certain shortcomings in the political ideas expressed in his work. But just as Lenin has pointed out, Shaw was 'a good man fallen among Fabians'. His intensive feeling for justice, and his correct creative method often straightened out his political prejudices in the course of creation. Alick West's contention that often the most penetrating passages of Shaw are directly contrary to Fabianism is a perfectly correct one.
Students of Ibsen have admired the dogged persistence of this old dramatist in North Europe in his study of human character. Shaw also was this kind of person. Although he has been called a 'laughing artist' and a 'great humorist', his attitude towards humanity is serious from beginning to end. He never gave an easy assent before he had thought through a problem. But once he grasped hold of the truth, he upheld it with great determination, with the ferocious courage of a lion or a tiger throwing an intense light upon it. Taking his attitude toward war as an instance, Shaw was always a hater of war and a lover of peace. In 1914, when the First Imperialist War broke out, he disapproved so much of the insanity of the bourgeois instigators of the war, that he placed his name with Henri Barbusse, Romain Rolland, and other progressive intellectuals of Europe to a protest against the war. In his pamphlet 'Common sense about the war' he called upon the soldiers of both sides to shoot their officers and go home to farm the land, while those who returned to the cities should start a revolution. This naturally earned him the suspicion and hatred of the warmongers, so that he remained neglected for a comparatively long period, causing people even to make the joke that 'Bernard Shaw was growing old'. It was not until the appearance of Heartbreak House, followed by a whole series of new plays, that these rumors ceased.
Now let us refer to Shaw's view of social reform. Although he admitted that Marx had 'opened his eyes', nevertheless he preferred reform and the Fabian Society. This is the reason why, in many of his works, after giving a profound exposure of the evils of society, he fails to indicate an active way out. In the early days of his creative life, when strikes followed one after another in England, and class antagonisms were becoming intense, he wrote a whole series of 'unpleasant' plays. When class antagonisms slackened for the time being, his barbs also were less stinging, and he produced 'pleasant' plays.
However, such a perspicacious and truly responsible writer could not ignore the fact that events were not developing in a 'pleasant' fashion but becoming daily more serious ; and he could hardly fail to discover that the Fabian movement was wasting its efforts. But as he still did not believe in the great strength of the revolutionary class, and did not see clearly yet the proper path of revolution, he landed up in denying Fabianism on the one hand and the revolutionary trade union movement on the other, considering that both were fundamentally useless. (Shaw's Revolutionist's handbook 1816). It was not until after the success of the Russian October Revolution, and the appearance of the success of the Soviet Socialist Republic, that the depression of the old playwright became dispersed. So he ended up by saying, “We are socialists. Russia's viewpoint is also ours”. Afterwards he kept firmly to this viewpoint and never wavered when the Soviet Union was attacked by the Nazi power of Germany in 1941 and her fate was in the balance.
In 1933, at the time of Shaw's visit to China, the liberation struggle of the Chinese people was in the midst of an extremely difficult period. Japanese imperialism, after the invasion of the Northeast lasting from Sept. 18, 1931, was again intensifying its aggression against North China, while the reactionary government of the Guomindang was compromising with and surrendering to the invader on the one hand, and persecuting and suppressing revolutionaries on the other, and England and the United States were waiting for Japan to attack China. At such a time it was difficult for Shaw in his visit to China to give satisfaction to all parties, and in fact, he did not do so.
In one of his articles, Lu Xun pointed out the different reactions to Ibsen and Bernard Shaw of the so-called 'upper classes' and 'lower classes'. He said : “It goes without saying the people who go to their plays are mostly ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentleman belong to a species that is full of 'amour propre'. Although Ibsen puts them on the stage and lays some of their secrets bare, he doesn't pass judgment on them, but says to them calmly 'Think it over. What is it all about ? Although the dignity of the ladies and gentlemen is somewhat shaken, they are still able to swagger home ; and although they are not very happy in their musings when they go home, they are still able to preserva a bold exterior… Shaw, however, is not like this. When he puts them on the stage, he tears the masks off their faces and the expensive clothes from their bodies, and ends by dragging them by the ears, pointing at them before everyone and saying, 'look, these are parasites !' He doesn't give them time to answer back, or a loophole of escape. Then the only people left laughing are the lower classes who are not guilty of the vices he holds up for castigation. In this Shaw approaches the lower classes, and in consequence, there is a distance between him and the upper classes.”
Shaw said in a speech to the students of Hong Kong University : “If at twenty you don't join the Reds in their revolution, you'll become fossils at fifty ; if you become red revolutionists at twenty, the chances are you won't get left behind at forty”. This is the sort of thing that is thoroughly disliked by reactionary rulers, and so it was picked upon by the bourgeois press of Shanghai for attack.
During the few hours he was in Shanghai, Shaw saw the people he wanted to see, such as Madame Sun, and Lu Xun. Nevertheless, Lu Xun said : “I didn't ask a single question of Shaw ; and Shaw didn't ask a single question of me. We lapsed into silence”. Shaw, however, said a few words to the newspaper reporters that besieged him, and what he said was distorted in both the Chinese and foreign papers the next day. For instance, on the subject of the Chinese government, the Shaw of the English papers said : “The Chinese should choose those they respect most to be their rulers” ; the Shaw of the Japanese papers said : “There are several governments in China” ; the Shaw of the Chinese papers said : “A good government is never popular with the people”. This led Lu Xun to say : “Shaw, in this instance, was not being satirical but a mirror”. He reflected the real facial expressions of the imperialists and their jackals.
An article produced during Shaw's visit to China that is worth paying attention to is his message to China and the Chinese people given through the Shi shi xin bao. [Siehe 1933 : Shaw, George Bernard. A message to the Chinese people].
These words of Shaw have the ring of absolute sincerity. Under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman Mao [Zedong], the Chinese people are uniting together, and after escaping from national crisis and having driven away the Guomindang reactionary clique, we are actually in the process of adopting the beneficial aspects of modern 'civilization' and rejecting and weeding out the harmful aspects according to our own benefit, and building a socialist, industrialized New China.
In regard to many questions, Shaw is not only a satirist, but also a prophet. Regarding the Soviet Union, regarding, China, regarding others that have suffered or are suffering oppression, a great deal of what he said has proved perfectly correct.
The first introduction of Shaw to China was probably through Pan Jiaxun's Lou xiang (Mean alleys) which was Shaw's virgin effort, Widowers' Houses. It was easy for this play that exposed the cruelty of capitalist exploitation and took up the cudgels for the poor, to draw forth a sympathetic response from the Chinese people of that time, who were also in distressful circumstances. Pan Jiaxun followed up his first translation with Mrs. Warren's profession, and the following plays appeared translated by other people : The philanderer, Arms and the man, The devil's disciple, Candida, St. Joan, Back to Methuselah and Pygmalion. Of these plays, Mrs. Warren's profession, Arms and the man, and Pygmalion have been produced on the stage at different times in various places in China.
If Widowers' houses was influenced by Ibsen, Mrs. Warren's profession is an answer to Ibsen's Doll's house. Ibsen himself threw light on Nora's leaving through Madame Helseth's husband saying to her in The lady from the sea : “I admit you are absolutely free. You can choose for yourself, and you are responsible for yourself”. The result was that Madame Helseth did not leave her husband. But the economic rights of the wife were not yet settled, so Shaw suggests a different solution for Vivie, the new woman, in her determined and uncompromising struggle to leave her brothel-keeper mother and that rotten parasite who lived on the income derived from capital invested in houses of prostitution, Sir George Crofts ; and that was an independent existence working at a profession. This is a development on A doll's house and The lady from the sea, even though in capitalist society, the problem of the professional woman is not an easy one to solve.
Ibsen and Bernard Shaw have many similarities both in their persons and in their art. Their artistic creation swept away a great deal of the prevailing decadence in the European theatre and made dramatic literature a weapon for criticizing society and revealing human life, and turned the theatre into what Bernard Shaw called 'a factory of ideas'. They were heirs to the notable tradition of their own countries and the whole of Europe, and in their turn, have developed it and exercised a strong influence on those who followed them. They both have a serious, severe, unflinching attitude towards artistic creation. Ibsen, for instance, wrote six plays in the period from A doll's house to The lady from the sea on the same central problem, probing it to its depths and bringing it into relief. And Shaw also, in the long period of his creative life, never stopped searching for the truth, for the real qualities of society. He has said that each of his plays marked a development of his thought. Both of them were deeply patriotic, with a warm love for humanity, and very much concerned for the fate of the human species. Both gave their support to all movements with justice on their side, and were staunch, unbending guardians of democracy and pace, in their hatred of war and all its horrors. Where th truth was, there they were to be found, supporting it without fear or favour.
Their works are not only loved by the Chinese people but have had an actual influence on society. Their attitude in pursuit of truth and in upholding it will be forever an example to us. The more we study their works, the more we realize that we have not learnt enough from them, and that their plays should be more frequently staged. In order to establish Chinese realism on a firm basis, we should study their works, act them, and attend performances of their plays more industriously than ever.
On this day, when we are holding a festival in memory of these two great writers, we are full of boundless optimism in regard to the development of the progressive dramatic culture of the whole world. In the past, progressive drama has brought wisdom and courage to the whole of humanity, and educated it in its struggle for liberation. Treading in the footsteps of Ibsen and Shaw, it will in the future bring more wisdom, more courage, and more noble feelings to aid the people of the present day and the future to build an even better life in an even better world.