Historical Critisim of Man's Fate
... will make their move and attack the authorities. “The city seems shaken by a violent storm, and the reader cannot help seeing in the sudden outbreak of this cataclysm the uprising of the Shanghai people who, like nature, are capable of fury” (Dye). When Kyo arrives in Hankow he begins to realize the hopelessness of his belief that communism will save them. “Was it possible that Hankow, the city to which the Communists of the entire world were looking to save China, was on strike? [...] If Hankow was not what everyone believed it was, all his people were already condemned to death. May too. And himself” (139). By describing Hankow in such a way, Malraux shocks the reader into seeing a vision of the revolution’s outcome – the same outcome of the many French uprisings which didn’t significantly change the fate of the French proletariat. Malraux reveals his insight into the events of the Shanghai insurrection, “Were Chiang Kai-shek’s troops waiting everywhere? Victors the month before, the Communists had known their moves hour by hour; today they knew nothing, like those who had then been the vanquished” (284). For Chiang Kai-shek and the leaders of the Kuomintang it was possible [...] to dispense with the support of popular forces [...] Indeed it became a necessity to dissociate from such allies, whose activities threatened the position of the privileged classes in town and countryside. The peasant upsurge, like that of the labour movement, objectively contributed to the political polarization and the eventual explosion on the revolutionary front which the Communists had been trying to prevent. At Shanghai on 12 April 1927 Chiang Kai-shek broke with the Communist Party and massacred thousands of militant workers(Chesneaux 99). In Hankow, Kyo meets with Vologin, the Russian leader in charge of Shanghai, to seek his support. But Vologin tells Kyo that the comrades must give up their arms to Chiang Kai-shek, even if it means their death. “You prefer to wait until Chiang has had our people murdered?” (147). Kyo feels betrayed – the Shanghai revolt is a success and Moscow wants them to give up their arms! (Moscow believes the Communists need Chiang Kai-shek in order to keep the other Chinese warlords in check.) The Communists “continued to treat Tchiang like a trustworthy revolutionary leader. [...] they nevertheless left the militias and the whole Shangai labor force politically unprepared for a possible attack from Tchiang. They were taken by surprise when he attacked on the night of April 12.” (Chesneaux, Barbier and Bergère 174) By developing Kyo’s character as a passionate leader who is concerned for the poor, Malraux reflects a part of his own childhood. Malraux’s writings ... stand principally as testimony to his efforts to overcome the disadvantages of his childhood and establish a career in a profession normally reserved, in France, to the more comfortable bourgeoisie. So ashamed was Malraux of his origins that it took Clara Goldschmidt, his first wife, several months of marriage to learn of them ...” (Greenlee 13). The character May is Kyo’s wife and a German doctor. She’s independent and sexually liberated, strong, compassionate, and intelligent. “She was a doctor in one of the Chinese hospitals [...] German, but born in Shanghai” (44). May tells Kyo about a sexual encounter she had, “I finally yielded to Langlen and went to bed with him.”(46) Although Malraux portrays May as sexually liberated, he doesn’t attribute the same sexual liberation to his female Chinese characters. “[...] while sexual liberation is inherent in Western feminism, most Chinese feminists in the 1920s still valued virginity and chastity.” (Li) Malraux’s confidence in Communism gives him a more liberalized perspective of women. One of the tenets of Communism is feminism. “[...] gender issues played an important role in the political culture of the early phase of the Chinese Communist Party [...] during the early 1920s.” (Levine). As a matter of fact, Malraux’s admiration for a strong and intelligent woman is evidenced by his courtship with his wife Clara. “Malraux courted her successfully by, among other little sweet things, telling her that she was the most brilliant person – after Max Jacob – he had ever met.” (Lebovics). Although Malraux understands the value of feminism, he also recognizes that Chinese women were treated no better than chattel. Arranged marriages were a common practice. “[...] the parents intervened directly in their children’s marriage; they could betroth them at a very early age to someone they would see for the first time on the day of their wedding” (Langlois 105). After May returns from work at the Chinese hospital, she tells Kyo “Always the same story you know. I’ve just left a kid of eighteen who tried to commit suicide with a razor blade in her wedding palanquin. She was being forced to marry a respectable brute” (44). Malraux’s whole political indoctrination comes from being raised in France. The attitude of proletariat versus bourgeoisie is a long standing conflict within the French culture. “The decade or so after 1902 has become known as the ‘heroic age of syndicalism.’ Revolutionary syndicalists, in their emphasis on an immediate, face-to-face strugg...