梁啓超と社會主義 --1903年訪米時の社會主義者との問答より--

Abstract

Liang Qichao is a significant figure in any general account of China's acceptance of modern Western civilization in the late Qing period because of his prolific writing during his years in exile in Japan. It is no exaggeration even to say that Liang pioneered almost all the modern academic disciplines in China. Most of us would accept that he was also a pioneer in introducing the idea of socialism. The publication of certain of Liang Qichao's essays mark the earliest introduction of socialism in modern China. Those include "Jinhua lun geming zhe Jie De zhi xueshuo" (進化論革命者頡德之學說, The Theory of Kidd, the Revolutionary Evolutionist), "Er shi shiji zhi ju ling tuo-la-si" (二十世紀之巨靈托拉斯, Trust, the Giant of the 20th Century), "Zhongguo zhi shehui zhuyi" (中國之社會主義, Chinese Socialism), and "Shehui zhuyi lun" (社會主義論, On Socialism), published consecutively in the first few years of the 20th century. It is well known that Liang learned much of what he did about the West through Japanese translations of Western works. However, as far as socialism is concerned, few books were available in Liang's intellectual circle at that time. On the other hand, he visited Canada and the United States over a ten-month period in 1903, and most of his early references to socialism were made after that trip. In fact, in his account of the travels, Xindalu youji (新大陸游記, Notes on a tour of the New Continent), he recorded that he was visited as many as four times by members of the Socialist Party of America. It may well be that he gained a better understanding of socialism through these contacts. The unfortunate thing, however, is that he himself wrote very little about their conversations. The material introduced here is a newly found interview which Liang Qichao gave to a member of the Socialist Party of America, precisely during his visit to North America. The interview by the Socialist journalist G. W. Wrigley was made in the spring of 1903, just after Liang arrived in Vancouver, and was published in International Socialist Review in June of the same year. In his interview with a real socialist, Liang (through an interpreter) made every effort to demonstrate his sympathetic view of socialism, stating, for example, that he had read books written by Karl Marx, or that a Chinese translation of the "Capital" was almost completed. Moreover, he went so far as to say that he was a friend of Katayama Sen, a famous socialist at that time. However, in addition to his exaggerated pronouncements, his interview offers important clues about the origins of Liang's understanding of socialism. What is most interesting is that he referred to a new Japanese novel Shin Shakai (新社會, New Society) written by Yano Fumio (矢野文雄 alias Yano Ryūkei 矢野龍溪), who as the Japanese minister plenipotentiary to China had helped Liang's escape from Beijing in 1898. Yano's work was a utopian science fiction novel which Liang linked to Edward Bellamy's Equality. What the interview makes clear is that Liang's interest in the idea of socialism was inspired by socialist fiction novels in Meiji Japan. We can, thus, extract important information from the interview.