Li Da (1890-1966)

One of the pioneers of disseminating Marxism in China; one of the founders of the Communist Party of China; outstanding Marxist theorist, propagandist and educator. Li Da, also named He Ming, was born in October 1890 in Lingling County, Hunan Province. In 1913, he was admitted to the Mathematics and Science Department of the First Higher Normal University in Tokyo, Japan. In 1918, he led the Federation of Students for National Salvation studying in Japan to Beijing and launched a demonstration against Duan Qirui's government with Xu Dehong and others.

Returning to Tokyo after the failure of the struggle, he gave up science studies and turned to Marxism-Leninism. In the course of one year, he translated works such as Interpretation of Materialist View of History, Marxist Economics and Overview of Social Problems, which introduced the basic principles of Marxism, and published articles such as “What Is Socialism?”, “The Purpose of Socialism” and “Chen Duxiu and New Thoughts”. In the early summer of 1920, he returned to Shanghai from Tokyo, and established the early Shanghai organization of the Party together with Chen Duxiu, Li Hanjun and others. In the ideological debate during the period of Party building, Li Da published papers such as "Discussing Socialism and Questioning Liang Rengong", "The Anatomy of Anarchism", "Marxist Socialism" and "Commenting on the Fourth International", which made important ideological and theoretical contributions for the establishment of the Party. He actively devoted himself to the major practice of Party building. He was the editor-in-chief of the monthly journal Communist Party and acted as secretary of the Shanghai Initiative Group of the Party. He was representative of the First National Congress of the Party, preparator and organizer of the First Congress, and was then elected the publicity chief of the CPC Central Bureau. Following that, the People's Press was established, 15 revolutionary theory books including the classics of Marxism and Leninism were translated and published, and Shanghai Civilian Girls' School was established. After the Second National Congress of the CPC, he returned to Changsha as president of Hunan Self-Study University and was the editor-in-chief of the New Era and published "Marxist Theory and China" and other articles. In the summer vacation of 1923, he and Chen Duxiu had serious differences on the independence of the Party and left the Party organization, but still insisted on the research and publicity of Marxist theory. In June 1926, Modern Sociology was published, a book, among the revolutionaries, almost everyone had a copy of and was reprinted 14 times later. In December, he served as acting chief political instructor of the Central Military Political Academy and chairman of the editorial board of the General Political Department of the National Revolutionary Army. After the failure of the Great Revolution, Li Da taught successively at Wuchang Sun Yat-sen University, Shanghai College of Law and Politics, Shanghai Jinan University, Beiping University, China University and Chaoyang University. In spite of all kinds of persecution by the reactionary authorities, the university was regarded as a platform for propagating revolutionary truth, guiding progressive students to the road of revolution and he was known as "Red Professor". He knew four foreign languages: Japanese, English, German and Russian. In one year, he translated and published 13 works, including the A Course of Dialectical Materialism, which Mao Zedong annotated. Within seven years, he wrote and published seven monographs on Marxist theory, such as An Outline of Sociology and An Outline of Economics.

Among them, An Outline of Sociology was called "the first Marxist-Leninist on philosophy textbook written by a Chinese himself" by Mao Zedong. During the Anti-Japanese War, he once taught dialectics for Feng Yuxiang's study laboratory and for the Guilin Office of the Eighth Route Army, and also taught at Guangxi University and Sun Yat-sen University. After his dismissal in 1941, he lived idly in his hometown and was still under the supervision of secret agents. In 1947, he accepted the offer of appointment to teach at Hunan University and wrote the Outline of Jurisprudence, which is the first monograph of Marxist jurisprudence theory in China. On the eve of the founding of the People's Republic of China, at the invitation of Mao Zedong, he traveled around Hong Kong to Beiping to participate in the preparations for the New Political Consultative Conference and was elected as a member of the First National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He rejoined the Communist Party in 1949. He successively served as president of Hunan University and Wuhan University, was then elected (academic) member of the Philosophy and Social Sciences Department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and member of the Standing Committee of the Third National People's Congress. He was elected president of China's Philosophical Association. He wrote more than a million words of treatise.

After Mao Zedong's On Practice and On Contradiction were re-published from 1950 to 1951, Li Da wrote "An Explanation of On Practice" and "An Explanation of On Contradiction", which were well received by the academic circles. After reading the first and second parts of "An Explanation of On Practice", Mao Zedong wrote to Li Da and said: "This explanation is excellent and will play a great role in disseminating materialism via popular language,” and recommended that the third part should be published as separate edition when it was completed. In August 1961, Mao Zedong met with Li Da at Lushan to talk about theoretical issues. He asked him to become the editor-in-chief of An Outline of Marxist Philosophy linking China's experience in revolutionary construction so as to break the "world-dominating" influence of Soviet textbooks. After Li Da finished the materialist dialectics part of the first volume, the “Cultural Revolution” broke out. He was persecuted for opposing the "theory of summit" advocated by Lin Biao. He died in Wuhan in August 1966, and the manuscript of the “Outline” could not be published. In 1978, Li Da's scientific research assistant during his lifetime made necessary revisions to the first volume manuscript of the An Outline of Marxist Philosophy submitted for examination in accordance with Li Da's last order. The manuscript was published by the People's Press under the title of “An Outline of Materialist Dialectics”. The synopsis and some preliminary manuscripts of the historical materialism part of the last volume were lost in the “Cultural Revolution” and could not be published. The Collected Works of Li Da, a total of 4 volumes, were published successively by People's Publishing House from 1980 to 1988. The Complete Works of Li Da, a total of 20 volumes, was published by People's Publishing House in 2016.