In Chinese literary history

it is especially the work of Guo Moruo(1892-1978) that postdates his self-declared conversion to Marxism-a transition that allegedly occurred in 1924 after he had read the theories of the Japanese economist Kawakami Hajime(1879-1946)

while in Japan - that has been studied. This paper will

however

focus on Guo Moruo's thinking prior to his conversion to Marxism. This will

more precisely

be done through an analysis of the essay "Guojiade yu chao guojiade"(The National and the Supranational). Guo Moruo wrote this essay in 1923 as a response to a novel written in 1919 by Henri Barbusse (1873-1935)

entitled (Guangming) in which the absurdity of World War I (1914-1918)-or the European War

Ouzhan

as it is generally referred to in China-is depicted. Against the background of the just finished First World War

Guo Moruo argues that the traditional Chinese mind has always had the supranational as norm

not the national. With this

he posits a claim for ‘universal peace’that is characteristic of Chinese philosophy.