From City to the Countryside: Kexue Xiaopinwen and Mass Science Education in Wartime China

In 1931 a Soviet schoolbook about the Five-Year Plan was a best seller in urban China. It was written by the Soviet engineer-turned writer Mikhail Il’in and translated by a then progressive Chinese writer Dong Chuncai. In the process of translating Il’in’s writings Dong and his colleagues developed a new literary form kexue xiaopinwen, or scientific-artistic essay that explicates scientific notions through storytelling and in a rather personal way. It became widely utilized in a time of revolution and war in China. Previous studies have focused on how the leftwing intellectuals utilized this literary form to attract urban readers and compete against the consumption-oriented leisure readings. Rarely has it been recognized that kexue xiaopinwen was re-created and widely utilized in science education in Communist ruled rural areas when Dong and his urban-based scientists and writers later moved from Shanghai to the Communist ruled rural areas.

This paper examines wartime science education in rural China through tracing the recreation of kexue xiaopinwen by Dong and his colleagues. I argue that a localized mass science education came into being as urban-based leftwing and progressive intellectuals transformed themselves into Communist educators and their work became ideological state apparatus. The infrastructure of writing transformed in the rural setting. These literary writers collaborated with scientists of Yan’an Natural Science Academy and published their writings regularly in the official newspaper Liberation Daily. Whereas the urban-based popular science intends to offer an imagined modern world that Soviet and progressive scientific world represented, the rural science education focuses on themes and topics of local agrarian production during war of resistance. Their works not only cultivated rural population with laws of natural science but also motivated them to observe and make changes to local environments.