The May Fourth movement is widely recognized as a watershed within Chinese cultural and political history, but it was also a significant local episode within a global history of science activism. Quaintly idiosyncratic as Chen Duxiu’s “two gentlemen,” Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science, may appear, they have also animated (in only somewhat less personified form) a transnational “conversation” very much alive today. Focusing on neglected Marxist participants, this paper reconstructs meaningful snatches of that long conversation in China, Russia, Britain, the US, and Japan. It finds that Chinese voices contributed in timely and important ways, especially on the problem of imperialism for science and democracy. It further shows that Marxists, in China and beyond, have shared certain modernist values with their liberal counterparts, including a faith in the democratic potential of universally valid scientific knowledge; however, they have offered highly divergent perspectives on what constitutes democracy and how it relates to science, challenging liberal efforts to separate science from politics and highlighting the contradictions generated by capitalism. A fuller understanding of the significance of Marxist and Chinese contributions to the cumulative discourse on science and democracy, and a livelier engagement with their voices, will help generate more liberatory socio-technical imaginaries.
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In January 1919, prominent Chinese intellectual and political activist Chen Duxiu famously summoned “Mr. Democracy” and “Mr. Science” to “cure China of all the darkness in its politics, morals, academics, and thought.” As quaint and idiosyncratic as these “two gentlemen” may appear, they were in fact part of a global community. In only somewhat less personified form, this powerful pair has animated a sustained, transnational discourse of what I call science activism – which combines, variously, analysis of science in society, efforts to promote science in the public sphere, and political interventions to affect science policy and/or transform scientific institutions.
