Chen Duxiu

Related Category: Chinese, Taiwanese, and Mongolian History: Biographies

or Ch'en Tu-hsiu(both: chŭn d-shy), 1879–1942, Chinese educator and Communist party leader. He was active in the republican revolution of 1911 and was forced to flee to Japan after taking part in the abortive “second revolution” of 1913 against Yüan Shih-kai. In 1915 he founded the journal New Youth in Shanghai. Articles by Ch'en, Li Dazhao, Hu Shih, and others encouraged Chinese youth to create a new culture free from Confucianism. He was dean of the school of arts and sciences of Beijing Univ. from Jan., 1917, until forced to resign under conservative pressure in Mar., 1919. Ch'en was converted to Marxism in the period following the student-led intellectual revolution known as the May Fourth Movement (1919). He founded (1920) two Marxist groups, and in 1921 representatives of these groups met with representatives of groups organized by Li Dazhao (neither Chen nor Li were present) to found the Communist party. He was dismissed from party leadership and withdrew from the party in 1927 over his opposition to the Comintern-ordered policy of armed insurrection.