ABSTRACT
Called the May Fourth Movement, it was one of the turning points in China's modern history, having cultural, social, and political dimensions. At the core of the New Culture Movement, a part of the larger May Fourth Movement which also included political developments, was the rejection of traditional culture and attempts to define a new cultural base and direction. From 1919 on, and picking up steam into the early 1920s, the direction of the May Fourth Movement changed. Its focus on enlightenment and individual liberation through the shattering of traditional cultural hierarchical bonds was swallowed up by an emphasis on national salvation, that is, on liberating the nation from imperialist and warlord control. Historians have generally ranked the May Fourth Movement with the abolition of the civil service examination and the overthrow of the monarchy and the imperial regime as one of the most significant revolutionary milestones in China's twentieth-century revolution.
