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Introduction

contemptible in the Chinese character and a watch word to put people on their guard.

In 1926 Lusin left Peking, which had become the stronghold of reaction and where he was in danger of being arrested as a Bolshevik, and went to lecture at the University of Amoy at the invitation of Lin Yutang, then dean of the College of Letters in that institution. He did not find the atmosphere there congenial and went to Canton, "the home of the Revolution," early in the following year, only to discover that he had either to follow the line laid down by the faction in power at the moment or get out. He got out, and went to Shanghai, where he lived until his death on October 19, 1936.

The year 1927 was a crucial one for China. It will be recalled that it was the year in which the triumph of the Nationalist Revolution was followed by the triumph of the conservative element in the Kuomintang over the more liberal element within the party and the split between the Kuomintang and the Communists. Lusin witnessed the bloody purge at Canton and was constrained to write:

Revolution, counter-revolution, non-revolution.

The revolutionaries are executed by the counter-revolutionaries and the counter-revolutionaries by the revolutionaries. The non-revolutionaries are sometimes taken for revolutionaries and executed by the counter-revolutionaries, sometimes taken for counter-revolutionaries and executed by the revolutionaries, and sometimes executed by either the revolutionaries or the counter-revolutionaries for no apparent reason at all.

He felt that the masses had again been betrayed just as they were betrayed after the 1911 revolution, which made no change in their slave status except to make them into "slaves of ex-slaves."