The Early Spread of Marxism in China

The introduction of Marxist theory to China was relatively late, and the names of Marx and Engels were introduced by British missionary Timothy Richard in 1899 in the "Great Classmate" published in the Gazette of Nations; and the people learned that Marx was the founder of socialism through the New People Series edited by Liang Qichao in 1902. Initially, the introduction of Marxist theory was mainly through Kuomintang (KMT) members such as Sun Yat-sen, Zhu Zhixin, Ma Junwu, Liao Zhongkai, Hu Hanmin and Dai Jitao. In China, it was after the October Revolution that Marxist theory was really widely disseminated as a weapon to transform society. Mao Zedong once pointed out: “The October Revolution sent us Marxism-Leninism.”

It was Li Dazhao who took the lead in raising the banner of Marxism in China. After the outbreak of the World War I and the October Revolution, Li Dazhao gradually got rid of the influence of various bourgeois and petty bourgeois social ideological trends and chose Marxism as the pioneer of Chinese communism. From a patriotic standpoint, Li Dazhao transformed from a democrat to a communist.

After the October Revolution, in July 1918, Li Dazhao published the article “A Comparative View of the French and Russian Revolutions”, which affirmed that capitalist civilization “will be in the prime of prosperity and decline” and that "civilization after the beginning of the twentieth century will inevitably undergo tremendous changes". In his articles “Victory of the Common People” and “Victory of Bolshevism”, published in November and December of the same year, he pointed out that the October Revolution "was the forerunner of the world revolution in the twentieth century", and was convinced that "the future of the world must be a world of red flags".

In September and November 1919, he published “My Views on Marxism”, which explicitly called Marxism as "the theory of the world's transformation of the original", and gave a comprehensive, systematic and scientific introduction to Marx's historical materialism, the theory of surplus value and the theory of class struggle. He pointed out that Marxism is the unity of its historical theory, economic theory and political theory, that is, historical materialism, economic theory and socialist theory by saying that "the theory of class struggle is just like a golden thread, which fundamentally links the three principles together."

Different from the fragmentary and imprecise statements of Marxism made by some people in the past, this article had made quite a complete description of Marxism and a more accurate explanation, which shows that Li Dazhao was the first Marxist in China.

Li Dazhao successively taught "Historical Materialism", "Marx’s Theory of History", "History of Marxist Economics", "History of Social Development", "Sociology" and other courses in Peking University, Beijing Women's Normal University and Beijing Normal University, which were warmly welcomed by progressive youth. He also participated in the editorial work of the New Youth magazine and edited the Weekly Review, which made it the main position to propagate Marxism around the May Fourth Movement.

In March 1920, Li Dazhao initiated the establishment in Beijing of the earliest group in China to study Marxism, the Research Society of Marxist Theories of Peking University, which organized outstanding young people who had been trained in the May Fourth Movement to further study Marxist theory. Under his education and influence, many young people accepted Marxism, steadfastly embarked on the revolutionary road, and promoted its wider spread in China.

Li Dazhao held up the torch of Marxism in "Dark China", like Prometheus who stole the fire from the heaven, and he took the lead in opening a road to spread Marxism in a wasteland, nurtured a large number of outstanding communists, and accelerated the awakening of the Chinese people. The spread of Marxism broke the depressing atmosphere of the feudal autocratic system which unifies the whole world, and made the ideology break through the cage and inspired the national spirit greatly. Li Dazhao wrote many enthusiastic articles to propagate Marxism, as Mr. Lu Xun said: "His legacy will be forever, because this is the the legacy of a pioneer, a monument of revolutionary history."