Lu Xun did say this, and this sentence was said, and there was no need to find any excuse for it. Although Lu Xun was one of the greatest writers of the last century, he was in a chaotic world, and because of some current situation and ideological reasons, it was understandable to say some more radical and erroneous remarks.
In addition to the sentence "Chinese characters do not perish, China will perish", Lu Xun also said a lot of remarks about banning Chinese characters and replacing Chinese characters with Latin, English, pinyin, etc. I will give a few examples below, and everyone will know how much Lu Xun wanted to abolish Chinese characters.
In August 1934, Lu Xun wrote in the article "Chinese Characters and Latinization": "Yes, Chinese characters are treasures handed down from ancient times, but our ancestors are even older than Chinese characters, so we are even more treasures handed down from ancient times." Sacrificing us for Chinese characters, or sacrificing Chinese characters for us? This is something that anyone who has not yet lost their minds can answer immediately. In December 1934, Lu Xun further stated in his article "On new characters": "Square characters are really a weapon of the policy of fooling the people... The Chinese character is also a tuberculosis on the chinese toiling masses, and the germs are lurking in it, and if they don't get rid of it first, they will only die. ”
In December 1935, Lu Xun pointed out in "Our Opinions on the Implementation of new characters": "China has reached a moment of life and death, we must educate the masses, organize and solve problems, but this work of educating the masses began to encounter a huge problem, this problem is the square Chinese characters, square Chinese characters are difficult to recognize, difficult to write, difficult to learn ..."
Through the above remarks, combined with the sentence "Chinese characters do not perish, China will perish", it is enough to prove that Lu Xun really wants to abolish Chinese characters.
Since it is confirmed that Lu Xun really wants to abolish Chinese characters, we cannot help but ask, as a great educator, thinker, and writer, why is Lu Xun so "radical"? Moreover, he himself is using Chinese characters to criticize people's mouths, why should he hate Chinese characters so much?
In fact, all this has to do with his political stance.
After the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising on October 10, 1911, revolutionary armies across the country responded one after another, and in November, the revolutionary army invaded Hangzhou, and the people of Shaoxing rejoiced. At the conference to welcome the restoration held at the Kaiyuan Temple in Shaoxing, Lu Xun was elected as the chairman of the conference and delivered an inspiring speech.
However, the Xinhai Revolution did not completely complete the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal tasks, and the final achievements of the revolution were controlled by the former Qing forces, the Beiyang Army. During Yuan Shikai's tenure, he gradually removed the word "provisional" from the word "provisional president", and then slowly carried out dictatorial rule, and finally even called himself emperor.
As a person with advanced ideas, Lu Xun naturally had to struggle to the end against this kind of conservatism. When the October Revolution broke out in Russia in 1917, Lu Xun saw the dawn of the new century from this incident. In May 1918, Lu Xun published the first anti-feudal vernacular novel in history, "Diary of a Madman", in the "New Youth" newspaper, so he participated in the editing of the "New Youth" newspaper and became acquainted with Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi and other advanced people.
With the continuous development of the New Culture Movement (1915-1923), Lu Xun gradually became a representative figure in the movement, he created a large number of essays, attacked feudal rituals such as "festival", "lie" and "filial piety" from various cunning angles, criticized the Zunkong retrofuturism represented by the "Xueheng School", and showed a revolutionary spirit of complete anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism.
Lu Xun, a madman who used the "pen" as a weapon, naturally aroused the envy of the Beiyang government, and his name was soon included in the statistical list of the Beiyang government. Many people say that the reason why the Beiyang government did not kill Lu Xun was because Lu Xun had been living in the concession, and even some said that the Beiyang government did not kill the literati.
In fact, Lu Xun has always been in sun Yat-sen's camp, that is, the National Government, and Shanghai, where he lives, is the territory of the National Government. Of course, after the fall of the Beiyang government, the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek also wanted Lu Xun (here, Chiang Kai-shek belongs to the rebellious revolution, and his ideas are different from Sun Yat-sen's).
In 1934, chiang kai-shek, while frantically launching the fifth counter-revolutionary "encirclement and suppression," also advocated the so-called "new life movement" of etiquette, righteousness, honesty, and shame as the criterion, which once again set off a counter-current of reverence for Kong's bible reading. The Zunkong retro faction in the cultural and educational circles is eager to move, repeating the old tune of "revival of literature and speech".
Thus began the debate between the vernacular and the vernacular, and thus led to an argument about language. Originally, Lu Xun was inclined to the vernacular in this struggle, but in the argument about language, Lu Xun believed that Chinese characters should be abolished and the whole people should learn Western languages.
Of course, after history, Lu Xun's view is wrong, and now Chinese characters have been spread through Confucius Institutes and have been used in many countries around the world, and we are proud of this special font.
However, because of Lu Xun's erroneous view, Lu Xun's entire merits cannot be denied. Lu Xun spent most of his life fighting for the people and the realization of the Three People's Principles; he was not afraid of power and dared to attack the Beiyang government under feudal rule and chiang Kai-shek's National Government.