The Influence of Japanese Marxism on the Early Adaptation of Marxism to the Chinese Context

With the development of Japanese capitalism and the rise of its workers’ movement, Japanese socialists successively translated and introduced classic works by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and others into the country, promoting the widespread dissemination of Marxism in Japan. In the early process of introducing and translating literature, they created a considerable number of Marxist terms, enhancing the Japanese proletariat’s understanding of Marxism while also impelling them to put theory into socialist revolutionary practice. Influenced by the tide of Japanese socialist thought, the main agents of dissemination—Chinese students studying in Japan and bourgeois reformists or revolutionaries who had taken refuge in Japan as “exiles”—engaged in the translation and dissemination of Japanese-language Marxist literature, exerting a significant influence on the early adaptation of Marxism to the Chinese context.

随着日本资本主义的发展及其工人运动的兴起，日本社会主义者陆续将马恩列等经典著作译介到国内，促进了马克思主义在日本的广泛传播。在早期引进、译介文献的过程中，他们创造了相当数量的马克思主义术语，增进了日本无产阶级对马克思主义的理解，同时也促使他们将理论付诸社会主义的革命实践。受日本社会主义思潮的影响，以留日学生和避居日本的资产阶级改良派或革命派的“亡命客”为传播主体，投入译介日文马克思主义文献的传播活动中，对早期马克思主义中国化产生了重要影响。

Term Formation: The Cultural Foundation of Marxism’s Dissemination in Japan. At the beginning of the 20th century, when Marxism began to take root in East Asia, Japanese socialists primarily adopted two methods for translating and creating Marxist terms: one was to borrow a word from classical Chinese and endow it with new meaning; the other was to directly use Chinese characters (kanji) in Japanese to coin new terms. The second method was of great significance. First, it avoided the “awkwardness” of directly transliterating Western technical terms in katakana, where readers could not grasp the meaning from the written form and required special annotation. Second, Japanese has a deep foundation in Chinese characters, making it easier for audiences to understand and accept Marxist ideas during dissemination. Third, Chinese characters are concise; compared with katakana loanwords, they are less prone to spelling errors in printing and typesetting, better ensuring theoretical accuracy. Thus, with the sharp tool of Chinese characters, the Japanese integrated Marxist terms into a Japanized terminological system, laying a solid cultural foundation for the dissemination of Marxism in Japan.

术语成型：马克思主义在日本传播的文化基础。20世纪初，马克思主义开始在东亚扎根时，日本社会主义者翻译创造马克思主义术语主要采用以下两种方式：一种是借用中国古汉语中的某个词，赋予新的意义；另一种是直接采用日语中的汉字来创造新词。第二种做法具有非常重要的意义。首先，这一做法摆脱了直接用片假名音译西方专业术语时，读者无法从字面上得知其意义，遭遇到需要特别注释的“尴尬”。其次，日语有深厚的汉字基础，使得马克思主义在传播时，受众更易理解和接受。最后，汉字言简意赅，相对于片假名的外来语，在印刷、排版时不容易出现假名拼写的错误，更能保证理论的准确性。因此，有了汉字这一利器，日本人将马克思主义的术语整合为一个日本化的术语体系，为马克思主义在日本的传播奠定了坚实的文化基础。

The Japanese Channel: A Medium for China’s Absorption of Marxist Terminology. Compared with the difficulty of absorbing terminology from European languages, China had unique natural advantages in absorbing Marxist terms through the Japanese channel. These are mainly manifested as follows: First, as a country within the sphere of influence of Chinese culture, Japan had long been influenced by Chinese civilization and thus belonged to the same cultural community as China, making it easy to generate cultural identification. Second, the logographic nature of Chinese characters profoundly influenced the linguistic thinking of the Japanese. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan translated a large number of Western theoretical works and created many Sino-Japanese loanwords (wasei kango). Because both Chinese and Japanese share the characteristic of being logographic scripts, using Japanese translations as a medium and directly borrowing terms from Japanese became a shortcut for translating and understanding Western works. Third, Chinese characters better ensure the continuity of cultural tradition than phonemic scripts. When Chinese used native morphemes to create terms for new Western concepts, the written form of Chinese characters served as a tool for the creators of new terms to understand their etymology. For the recipients of new vocabulary, the word-formation patterns of Chinese characters helped in understanding their deeper meanings.

日本渠道：中国吸收马克思主义术语的媒介。相比从欧洲语言吸收术语的乏力而言，中国从日本渠道吸收马克思主义术语具有得天独厚的天然优势。主要表现在：一是作为中华文化的辐射国，日本长期受中华文化影响，因而与中国同属于一个文化共同体，容易产生文化认同感。二是中文的语素文字对日本人的语言思维产生了深远的影响。日本在明治维新后翻译了大量的西方理论著作，创造了大量的和制汉语词。由于汉语和日语同属语素文字的特性，以日文译本为媒介，从日语直接借用术语，成为翻译理解西方著作的捷径。三是汉字比音位文字更能保证文化传统的连贯性。当汉语借助本土语素创造表示西方新概念时，对于新词的创造者，汉语的书写形式成为理解词源的工具。而对于新词汇的接受者，汉语词汇的构词方式则有助于理解其深层含义。

China’s Primary Source Country for Early Marxist Texts. From the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 to the Xinhai Revolution, there was a peak in the number of Chinese students studying in Japan, with the highest number reaching “approximately 8,000 male and female students combined,” truly “unprecedented in any country hosting foreign students.” This period was also a golden age for Chinese students in Japan and the so-called “exiles” to absorb and translate Marxist literature from Japan. They became the main force in reading and translating Japanese-language Marxist literature, to the extent that “Japanese translations filled the markets, were promoted in schools, and for a time, the entire academic world became a prevailing fashion.”

中国早期马克思主义的主要文本来源国。中日甲午战争后到辛亥革命前，日本曾经出现过中国留日学生的高峰，人数最多时曾达“文武男女学生共约8000人”，实为“任何留学国所未有者”。这一时期也是中国留日学生和所谓的“亡命客”从日本吸收、译介马克思主义文献的黄金时期。他们成为阅读和翻译日文马克思主义文献的主要力量，以至“日文本译本，遂充斥于市肆，推行于学校，几使一时之学术，浸成风尚”。

In fact, the translation activities of Chinese students in Japan began in 1901. In the period from 1901 to 1906 alone, they translated more than 20 works. Among them, Chinese translations of socialist works such as Kōtoku Shūsui’s *The Essence of Socialism*, Fukui Junzō’s *Modern Socialism*, Muriai Tomoyoshi’s *Socialism*, and Nishikawa Kōjirō’s *The Socialist Party* were successively published by Shanghai Guangzhi Book Company. After this, the translation and dissemination of Marxist literature via Japan as an intermediary gradually took shape. Before the May Fourth Movement, China’s understanding of Marxism can be said to have come overwhelmingly from Japanese-channel Marxist literature. Even after the May Fourth Movement, although the Japanese channel was replaced by the Soviet channel, Japanese-channel Marxist literature still played an important role and did not fade away due to the influence of the Russian October Revolution. Apart from some important translations, as many as 18 Chinese translations of Kawakami Hajime’s works appeared around 1926 alone. Meanwhile, works by Abe Isoo, Sakai Toshihiko, Takabatake Motoyuki, and Yamakawa Hitoshi were also translated in more than five editions each. According to incomplete statistics, from 1902 to 1949, there were as many as 231 translated works. Particularly in the more than 30 years from 1902 to 1937, Japanese-channel Marxist literature made an irreplaceable contribution to the dissemination of Marxism in China, reaching a peak around 1919. After 1937, Japanese-channel Marxist literature temporarily fell to a low point.

其实，中国留学生译介活动肇始于1901年。仅在1901—1906年间，他们翻译的著作就达到20多部。其中，幸德秋水的《社会主义神髓》、福井准造的《近世社会主义》、村井知至的《社会主义》、西川光次郎的《社会党》等社会主义著作的中译本陆续由上海广智书局出版，在此之后，马克思主义文献经由日本中转而传入中国的译介传播逐渐形成规模。在五四运动之前，中国对马克思主义的了解，可以说绝大部分来自日本渠道马克思主义文献。即使在五四运动之后，尽管日本渠道被苏俄渠道所取代，但是日本渠道马克思主义文献依然发挥着重要作用，并没有因俄国十月革命的影响而消退。除了一些重要译文外，仅仅在1926年前后，河上肇著作的中译本就有18部之多。而安部矶雄、堺利彦、高畠素之、山川均的著作也被翻译了5种以上。据不完全统计，1902—1949年，仅译著就多达231部。特别是在1902—1937年的30多年间，日文马克思主义文献对中国马克思主义传播的贡献是无可替代的，1919年前后达到高峰。1937年以后，日本渠道马克思主义文献一度跌至低谷。

Japanese Marxism Promoted the Formation of China’s Marxist Discourse System. Japan’s translation and dissemination of Marxist literature started early and spanned a long period, providing a broad blueprint for China’s absorption of Marxist terminology. According to statistics from the German scholar Wolfgang Lippert, Chinese directly borrowed 35 Marxist terms from Japanese, including “capitalism” (資本主義) and “socialism” (社会主義); and 9 terms, such as “the masses” (民眾), were borrowed with modifications.

日本马克思主义促进中国马克思主义话语体系的形成。日本译介马克思主义文献起步较早，历史较长，这就为中国吸收马克思主义术语提供了广泛的蓝本。根据德国学者李博的统计，汉语从日语中直接借用的马克思主义术语有“资本主义”“社会主义”等35个；经过修改而借用的有“民众”等9个。

Of course, when borrowing Japanese Marxist terms, whether to adopt them directly or to modify them had to be decided based on the “original intent of the authors” of the classic works by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and others, and could not be determined subjectively. Take the term “means of production” (生产资料) as an example. In Japanese, the original expressions were “生産機関” (seisan kikan) or “生産手段” (seisan shudan). In the 1938 Chinese translation of *Capital*, the Japanese term “生産手段” was directly borrowed and translated as “生产手段.” However, in the 1957 editions of *Capital* and the *Complete Works of Marx and Engels*, based on the Japanese term “生産手段” and combined with the original meaning of the German term “Produktionsmittel,” a free translation was made, rendering it as “生产资料.” Clearly, this translation is more accurate, because according to the principles of Marxist economics, the means of production include both the instruments of labor and the objects of labor. The term “生产手段” emphasizes the instrumental nature of the instruments of labor. In contrast, the term “生产资料,” compared with “生产手段,” also emphasizes the attribute of the objects of labor, making it more comprehensive and accurate in content and meaning.

当然，在借用日文马克思主义术语时，是直接借用，抑或加以改造，这要根据马恩列等经典著作的“作者原意”来取舍决定，不能主观臆断。以“生产资料”这一术语为例，在日文中原本的表述为“生産機関”或“生産手段”。在1938年版《资本论》中译本中，采用的是直接借用日文术语“生産手段”的译法，译为“生产手段”。而1957年版的《资本论》和《马克思恩格斯全集》中，在日文术语“生産手段”的基础上，结合德文原名“Producktionsmittel”的本源意义，对“生産手段”进行意译，译为“生产资料”。显然，这一译法更加准确，因为按照马克思主义经济学原理，生产资料既包含劳动资料，也包含劳动对象。“生产手段”一词，突出了劳动资料的工具性。而“生产资料”一词相比“生产手段”，还强调了劳动对象这一属性，在内容和含义上更加全面、准确。

In summary, influenced by the Japanese Marxist interpretive paradigm, China’s understanding and cognition of Marxism was initially in a passive position of reception, but it was not a case of blindly following. In terms of the content received, the dissemination of Marxism in Japan followed the trajectory of “the theory of scientific socialism → Marxist political economy and the historical materialist view of history → Marxist dialectical materialism.” However, the dissemination of Marxism in China placed greater emphasis on the holistic introduction of the three component parts of Marxism. Nevertheless, without the mediating role of Japanese Marxist terminology, the difficulty of directly translating Marxist original works or English translations into Chinese terminology would have greatly increased, and would have resulted in a situation where different Chinese translations used inconsistent terminology. Because Japanese translations had already refined Marxist terms, Chinese translators could directly transplant these terms or make slight modifications for use, shortening the process of terminological improvement, thereby greatly enhancing the efficiency of China’s absorption of Marxist theory and accelerating the process of Marxism’s dissemination in China.

总之，受日本马克思主义解读范式的影响，中国对马克思主义的理解认知起初处于被动接受地位，但也并不是亦步亦趋。从接受内容来看，马克思主义在日本传播的内容遵循“科学社会主义学说—马克思主义政治经济学和历史唯物主义历史观—马克思主义辩证唯物主义”的路线，但是马克思主义在中国的传播比较注重对马克思主义三个组成部分的整体性传入。然而，如果没有日文马克思主义术语的中介作用，中国直接从马克思主义原著或英译本翻译成中文术语的难度将会大大增加，且会产生各中译本中文术语不统一的状况。由于有日译本对马克思主义术语的推敲，中文译者可以直接移植这些术语或者稍加改动即可使用，缩短了术语的改进过程，从而大大提高了中国吸收马克思主义理论的效率，加快了马克思主义在中国传播的进程。

Online Editor: Paul

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