Why Chinese Revolutionaries Loved The Gadfly

Most of us learned about The Gadfly in Adam Curtis’ recent documentary, “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.” He talked about how the book was popular with maoist revolutionaries in China. The book, published in 1897 was not popular at the time but both Soviet and Chinese young people sought the author at her home in New York because her book had been so inspirational to them and their revolutionary ideas. Couched in a torturous romance are two people who sacrifice themselves for a greater good. I wrote a critique of this book for grad school, and I’ve adapted my work here for my readers with more explanations and politics than I’m allowed to write about in my program. I encourage you to pick up the book. It’s slow in parts for sure, but my book club enjoyed reading it overall.

A Rough Outline of the Complicated Plot

The book’s central plot is the political revolution in northern Italy in the post-Napoleonic period of the 19th century. Both characters have a whole arc, from the innocence and naïveté of youth to the hardness of adulthood and tragedy.

Arthur is a devout catholic young boy. He does not quite understand politics when he gets involved in a dangerous political game. Gemma is young, radical, and ready to participate in change as young people are wont to do. Arthur decides to get involved in the little revolutionary plot. In a moment of terrible stupidity, he confesses the entire plot to the local archbishop, who is also his very dear friend. The archbishop reports it to the police and Arthur is arrested. On top of that, while bearing up his jail sentence well, the love of his life Gemma, who isn’t interested in him, decides that he has betrayed their plan for political revolution and strikes him. Arthur does not realize that telling a priest would reveal the whole plot to the local government.

As Arthur’s parents are dead, his wealthy brother has to come to his rescue and get him out of jail. Just because life is weird, Arthur’s sister-in-law decides to inform him that his is actually the son of the archbishop because his mother liked to sleep with men, and he is actually a bastard. Arthur decides to forsake the church, forsake his family, and goes down to the docks to find a ship away from Italy.

He takes a ship to the new world, leaving his old name and family behind. In South America, he becomes the mysterious Ramirez who has been adventuring in the mysterious continent and hiking along with prominent exploratory expeditions, injuring himself along the way. He returns to Italy as a political satirist. One of his driving motivations is a certain amount of revenge, and his return to Italy is his chance to get revenge under cover of a new identity.

In part two, Gemma has married her love, Bolla, but he has since died along with her child. She has transitioned from a young woman of radical politics into a savvy political operator in a local underground political party. Although her transformation is less dramatic than Arthur/Ramirez, she is a different person nonetheless. Gemma and Arthur/Ramirez end up becoming close again, and Arthur/Ramirez comes so close to revealing himself to her as they work politically in Italy.

The author does something interesting; she carefully conceals that Ramirez is Arthur, who all his friends think is dead. Gemma firmly believes that she has killed everyone she ever loved, and Ramirez doesn’t reveal himself until his final letter that he writes to her before he dies. She starts to realize who he really is at one point but can’t accept the reality right in front of her. The reality of Arthur/Ramirez’s injuries (he has a scar across his face and lame leg and arm) is too much to bear for her. If Ramirez is Arthur, then Gemma is responsible for all of his suffering, including his time in the circus as a sort of lame fool. This reality is too horrifying for her to accept. It is emotionally more palatable for Arthur to be dead than alive as Ramirez with a ruined body.

Arthur/Ramirez continues to court women and not fall in love with them like the ballet dancer Zita. He seems to do his thing with a complete disregard for others. This is evident both in his romance with Zita and the ways in which he taunts his former priest and father, now turned Cardinal, Montanello. This occurs once in a stunning cathedral scene and again at the very end when he reveals himself fully to the cardinal. Ramirez ends up dying in prison despite a great escape plan executed brilliantly by Gemma and foiled by Ramirez himself.

Both Gemma and Arthur/Ramirez have tragic stories; however, Gemma does not seek revenge towards others as Arthur/Ramirez does. Instead, she is caught between the tragedy of Arthur’s death or the tragedy of Ramirez’s life. Arthur/Ramirez is a tragic character because his life was destroyed by a series of lies, and he is unable to get over it.

Why the Book was Revolutionary

The book was not terribly popular when it came out in the days before the Russian Revolution. However, the book became much more popular in the intervening decades. When Russian artists would come to the United States and find out that the author lived in New York City, they would visit her at her apartment. The work similarly affected Chinese revolutionaries. The book is evocative of giving your life for something greater. Both the main characters in the book sacrifice themselves for the idea of freedom from Austrian oppression and the dream of a free and unified Italy.

The rejection of religion and family for revolution certainly would speak to the hearts of the Chinese youth in the 1940s, agitating for a better China. They could identify with the struggles of the characters and their desire for freedom. Indeed, it was the Chinese version of the book that would become popular. In the collectivist imagination, personal goals and desires had to be sublimated for the greater good of all of the society. That is certainly what Gemma and Arthur desired.

I have an image in my mind of young Chinese revolutionaries sitting around a bivouac waiting to fighting Chang-Kai-Shek again and reading this story and letting it inspire them to fight another day for the communist dream.

Collective Revolution

It is hard to remember that at one time people considered themselves to be a greater society. It is hard to think of a time when people did not put their individual desires to the forefront of every discussion. In the pandemic, sacrificing for others has become a contentious political issue. However, it only when people are willing to work together can a true social revolution occur. No one person can solve all problems. It is only by working together that we can achieve our goals. That is probably one of the great lies of neoliberal thought: that the individual is primary. The individual can only succeed when they are in a society that is optimized for their success. This optimization takes the power of the public and public policy. The Gadfly, although a bit convoluted, is a lesson in how institutions can hold us back and empower us. It shows us how personal sacrifice can pay dividends. It also reminds us that often we must plant that seed of the tree under whose shade we will never sit.