Li　Dazhao（1889—1927）

A pioneer of the Communist movement in China; one of the main founders of the CPC, he was born in the Leting County in the Hebei Province. He graduated from Tianjin’s Beiyang School of Law and Politics in 1913, after the school he immediately went to Japan to study and entered the Waseda University, in Tokyo, for a bachelor study of politics. During his study in Japan, he joined the organization of Chinese students studying in Japan and fought against Yuan Shikai's restoration of Chinese Qing monarchy and against those who betrayed the 1911 republic. After returning to China in May 1916, he became the Editor-in-chief of Beijing’s The Morning Bell newspaper. During this period, many articles of him were published in the revolutionary magazines of New Youth and The Tiger Daily (Jia Yin), and others, to propagate democratic ideas and criticize the old, reactionary society. At the end of 1917, he joined the Peking University as the director of the library in this school, later served as a tutor in the Economics and History Departments besides participated the editorial board work of the New Youth magazine. Under the influence of the October Revolution, he realized the transition of world views from radical democracy to communism and became the first person to spread Marxism in China. Between 1918-1919, his famous articles such as the “Comparative View on the French and Russian Revolutions”, “The Victory of the Common People”, “The Victory of Bolshevism and the New Era” were published, which eulogized the October Socialist Revolution enthusiastically. He at the basic level pointed out to the historical inevitability of socialism replacing capitalism and identified the links between the Chinese Revolution with the new world-wide revolution. At the end of 1918, Li Dazhao together with Chen Duxiu and others founded the Weekly Critical Review, which actively supported and guided the May 4th Movement (1919). In August of the same year, he published the article “Once More About on Problems and Doctrines (isms)”, which preliminarily expounded the important idea that the Chinese revolution should be guided by Marxism and that the social problems in China should be "solved fundamentally from the root", and he also criticized the reformist trend of thought represented by Hu Shi with a clear-cut standpoint. In March 1920, Peking University organized the first Marxist Theories Research Society in China and Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu began to prepare for the establishment of the Communist Party of China. In October, the same year, the initial organization of the Communist Party (the "Communist Group") was established in Beijing. After the founding of the CPC, Li Dazhao became responsible for the work of the Beijing District Committee and the Northern China leading group of the CPC. In August 1922, he participated in the special session of the Central Committee of the CPC held in West Lake, Hangzhou; and as an alternate member of the Central Committee, he supported the cooperation between the KMT and the CPC and actively assisted Sun Yat-sen in restructuring the KMT. Later, at the Third and Fourth National Congresses of the KMT, he was elected as the member of the KMT’s Central Executive Committee. In January 1924, he attended the First National Congress of the KMT held in Guangzhou, where he issued the written declaration “My Opinions”, to refute the provocative statements of a few right-wing elements of this party, and firmly upheld the policy of cooperation between the KMT and the CPC, thus he played an important leading role in this Congress, and was elected as a member of the Central Executive Committee of the KMT. In June 1924, he went to the Soviet Union to attend the Fifth Congress of the Communist International; he made a written speech as the chief representative of the delegation of the CPC, his speech introduced the surging National Democratic Movement in China. After returning from the Soviet Union in November of the same year, he actively organized and led the revolutionary movement in Northern China, launched the National Convention Movement and the Autonomous Customs Tariff Movement, and cooperated with Feng Yuxiang's National Army in many ways to carry out the Great Revolution (1924-1927) which aimed to overthrow Duan Qirui's warlord government. In 1926, after the March 18th Movement, Northern Warlord Government issued an arrest warrant against him. On April 6, 1927, he was arrested by Zhang Zuolin, who belonged to the Fengtian clique of warlords, and was executed in Beijing on the April 28th, at the age of 38, as a hero of Chinese Revolution.

In his short and glorious life, Li Dazhao has made indelible contributions to the dissemination of Marxism in China and the establishment of the CPC and greatly contributed to the exploration of the theories of the Chinese revolution, the works he left were collected into the Collected Works of Li Dazhao.