Li Ta-chao

Background

Li Ta-chao was bom on October 6, 1888, into a poor peasant family in Lo-t’ing, northeastern Hopeh. Orphaned when still an infant, he was brought up by his grandparents.

Education

In his youth he studied the Chinese classics in a village school and began his Western education from 1905 when he entered the Yung-p’ing-fu Middle School. Two years later he enrolled at the Pei-yang College of Law and Political Science at Tientsin where he spent the next six years studying political economy. Reportedly in response to the current radical nationalism of the time, he joined Sun Yat-sen’s T’ung-meng-hui and carried on anti-Manchu activities in Hopeh. He graduated from the Peiyang College in 1913 and went to Peking for a few months to help some classmates edit Yen-chih tsa-chih (Statesmen’s magazine).

In the fall of 1913 he went to Japan for further studies with the financial patronage of T’ang Hua-lung, a leader of the Progressive Party. For the next two and a half years he was a student at the Department of Political Economy at Waseda University in Tokyo where he acquired some knowledge of historical materialism. Disillusionment with Yuan Shih-k’ai’s regime led him to found the Shen-chou hsueh-hui (The China Study Society), which carried on secret anti-Yuan activities and worked closely with Sun Yat-sen s Chung-hua ko-ming tang (Chinese Revolutionary Party), a clandestine organization based in Japan. News of the Twenty- one Demands served by the Japanese government on Yuan Shih-k’ai (January 1915) made him interrupt his studies to embark on an effort to enlist the opposition of Chinese students throughout Japan. He edited a volume of essays called Kuo-ch'ih chi-men lii (In commemoration of national shame) and also wrote on behalf of these students “An Open Letter to Our Countrymen,” urging the Chinese public to resist Japanese encroachments. Failing to keep up with his studies he was expelled in February 1916 from Waseda.

Career

In the spring of 1916 he returned to China, and for the next six months, first in Shanghai and then in Peking, he was closely associated with T ang Hua-lung s faction in the Progressive Party. He served as T’ang’s secretary and edited the Party’s organ Ch’en-chung pao (Morning bell) which was later renamed Ch’en-pao (Morning post). He became a member of the Yen-chiu hsi (Research Clique), the parliamentary grouping which succeeded the Progressive Party with its reunited factions, but he soon terminated his connection with the clique when it gave support to Tuan Ch’i-jui, leader of the powerful Peiyang warlord faction. In January 1917 he accepted the invitation of Chang Shih-chao, a leading advocate of constitutionalism, to edit Chia-yin jih-k an (Tiger daily) but it was suppressed after four months, and Li fled to Shanghai where he remained to the end of the year. Meantime, he was involving himself in the new culture movement, centered around Ch’en Tu-hsiu’s Hsin ch’ing-nien (New youth), and he became one of its editors in January 1918. A month later he accepted the appointment of librarian of Peking University where later in the year he had as an assistant Mao Tse-tung, who was then immersing himself in the tide of “new thought.” In September 1920 Li was given the additional appointment of professor of history, political science, economics, and law, and subsequently became concurrently secretary to the University chancellor. Thus, within a brief period, Li emerged as one of the most revered leaders of the Westernized Chinese intelligentsia. After Ch’en Tu-hsiu’s resignation from Peking University in March 1919 and departure for Shanghai toward the end of the year, Li was to provide the leadership and guidance for a group of radical students at the intellectual storm center of the nation who were to emerge as leaders of the Chinese Communist Movement.

Before Li became interested in Marxism-Leninism in late 1918 he had evolved his own philosophy, which synthesized ancient Chinese philosophy with Western theories of progressive evolution (especially those of Emerson and Hegel), as outlined in two essays, “Youth” (which was his first essay for New Youth on October 1, 1916) and “Now” (also for New Youth, of April 15, 1918). Li espoused an optimistic faith in China’s capacity for self-renewal, which he thought could be brought about by discarding certain elements of her dead past and relying on her new youth to inaugurate a revitalized China. Within the framework of his passionate nationalistic concerns, he grappled with the problem of reconciling tradition with modernity, and politically he reposed his faith in constitutional democracy. However, his rapidly growing pessimism- over the prospect of constitutionalism in China made him look elsewhere for solutions. On June 30, 1918, he helped found the Shao-nien Chung-kuo hsueh-hui (Young China Association), one of many student organizations he helped to establish. Within that organization in the winter of 1918 he attracted a group of students to engage in the study of Marxism, and from this group emerged such prominent CCP leaders as Mao Tse-tung, Chang Kuo-t’ao, Ch’ii Ch’iu-pai, Teng Chung-hsia, Yun Tai-ying, Chang Wen-t’ien, Chao Shih- yen, and Shen Tse-min. In December he helped Ch’en Tu-hsiu to launch Mei-chou p’ing-lun (Weekly critic), which immediately became a forum for the famous debate on “Problems and Isms” between Li Ta-chao and Hu Shih, representing the two emerging wings of the intelligentsia; one stood for radical political activism within the framework of an all-embracing ideology, whereas the other inclined toward pragmatism and cultural activism and eschewed politics.

Li was always ready to provide material or other support to organized student groups. Among those to which he lent his sponsorship were Hsin-ch’ao she (New Tide Society, founded in November 1918), Ch’uan-kuo hsueh-sheng chiu-kuo hui (All-China Student Society for National Salvation), whose journal, Min-kuo (The Republic), first appeared in January 1919, and Chueh-wu she (Awakening Society, founded in Tientsin in September 1919).

In December 1919 the She-hui-chu-i yen-chiu hui (Society for the Study of Socialism) was formed at Peking University with the chancellor’s blessings and under Li’s guidance. Its membership included Ch’en Tu-hsiu, Ch ii Ch iu-pai, Teng Chung-hsia, Mao Tse-tung, and Chou En-lai. But this group broke up in a short time, after which Li formed another in March 1920 known as the Ma-k’o-szu hsueh-shuo yen-chiu hui (Society for the Study of Marxism), which included some of the above members, as well as Lo Chang-lung and Liu Jen-ching. It became a formal organization after October 1921 with a library of Marxist literature, and it also sponsored lectures and discussion groups, in short, it was a center of theoretical study for the early Chinese Communists.

At the Second CCP Congress, held in July 1922 in Shanghai, Li was elected to the Central Committee, among other members were Ch’en Tu-hsiu, Chang Kuo-t’ao, Kao Chiin-yu, Ts’ai Ho-sen, and Hsiang Ching-yii. The Congress re-solved to lend support to Sun Yat-sen’s KMT in the form of a two-party alliance, but under Comintern pressure this was changed to mean Communists joining the KMT as individuals, a policy that was resisted by the Chinese Communists. Li Ta-chao appears to have been somewhat more amenable and he played a key role in persuading his colleagues to accept the policy. His earlier association with the T’ung-meng-hui and personal friendship with Sun Yat-sen placed him m a unique position in the KMT-CCP collaboration. Therefore, after the Second CCP Congress, Li represented the Communist Party in discussions with Sun Yat-sen in Shanghai of plans for the KMT-CCP collaboration. Together with Ch’en Tu-hsiu, Ts’ai Ho-sen, and Chang T’ai-lei, Li was among the first Communists admitted into the KMT (August 1922), being admitted on the recommendation of his personal friend Chang Chi, a KMT veteran. In June 1923 the Third CCP Congress opened in Canton, for the first time under legal conditions. A sharp debate ensued over the question of Communist entry into the KMT, supported by Teng Chung-hsia, Ch’ii Ch’iu-pai, and others, Li opposed Chang Kuo-t’ao, who led the opposition to the united front, and in the end the Congress endorsed the policy of entering the KMT.

In the meantime, in 1922 Li had been elected secretary of the North China branch of the Chinese Labor Unions’ Secretariat and with Teng Chung-hsia he played a leading role in the February 7 (1923) strike of the Peking-Hankow Railway workers. Li was present as a delegate from Hopeh at the First Congress of the reorganized KMT held in Canton in January 1924 with Communist participation. On behalf of the Communists he issued a circular letter among the delegates to allay the deep current of fears and suspicions held by some KMT members concerning the motives of the CCP in entering the KMT. At the Congress he was one of three Communists (the other two being T’an P’ing-shan, the most active Communist member in working out the reorganization, and Yu Shu-te) to be elected as regular members of the Central Executive Committee. (In Peking he was to play a prominent role in the KMT branch, and he was re-elected to the Central Executive Committee at the Second Congress held in January 1926).

The next major highlight in Li’s career was his role in the tragic mass student demonstrations in Peking on March 18, 1926. Early that year Feng Yu-hsiang, in a maneuver against the coalition of Chang Tso-lin and Wu P’ei-fu, which had been formed against himself, sent his army, the Kuominchiin, to blockade the Taku fort near Tientsin, thus violating the Boxer protocol of 1901. Chang’s ally, Japan, immediately sent naval forces to the scene, and eight foreign governments presented the Tuan Ch’i-jui government in Peking with an ultimatum, demanding the removal of the blockade within 48 hours. This was seized upon as another instance of foreign encroachment, and the students in Peking, organized and led by Li Ta-chao and other young radicals, staged a mass demonstration on March 18, 1926, at T’ien-an-men. The police responded by firing into the crowd, and Li himself was wounded in the head. The national university proved to be enough of a sanctuary for Li, much as they wanted to seize Li, the authorities had to reckon with hostile public opinion, which was bound to follow from an encroachment upon the principal educational institution of the country. Furthermore, as long as Feng Yii-hsiang’s forces were in the vicinity, Li felt safe to continue his activities in Peking. However, in December 1926 Feng’s army was forced out of Tientsin and Peking, and Chang Tso-lin seized the authority of the central government; a warrant of arrest for Li and many others was promptly issued. Li was forced to take refuge in the Soviet Embassy and continued his leadership of Communist activities in north China for another three months, until April 6, 1927, when he was arrested on the embassy compound following a raid by Chang Tso-lin’s gendarmes. Notwithstanding the intercessions of more than 300 prominent men of the country for his release, Li was executed (by strangulation) in prison on April 28, 1927, along with 19 other Communists.

Politics

In March 1920, through his Russian colleague Sergei A. Polevoy, Li met Comintern official Gregory Voitinsky who led a mission to investigate the May Fourth Movement. Li Ta-chao seems to have felt that Ch’en Tu-hsiu, then publishing New Youth in Shanghai, was in a better position to benefit from Voitinsky’s preferred assistance and skill in organizing a Bolshevik party. He therefore directed Voitinsky and his group to Ch en Tu-hsiu. Ch’en’s receptivity to the idea of organizational activity is shown by the fact that scarcely a month had passed when in May the first Communist nucleus was organized in Shanghai. In August the Socialist Youth League was also formed. Li Ta-chao was responsible for forming corresponding units in Peking in September, with the help of Chang Kuo-t’ao, Lo Chang-lung, Teng Chung-hsia, and others. The Peking Communists next embarked on organizing labor. With Chang Kuo-t’ao and Teng Chung-hsia, Li established a night school for the workers and their children at Ch’ang-hsin-tien, a terminal of the Peking-Hankow Railroad 40 miles outside of Peking where a concentration of railroad workers was to be found. The Peking branch also published a workers’ tabloid, Lao- tung yin (Voice of labor). When Ch’en Tu-hsiu left Shanghai for Canton to be Ch’en Chiung-ming’s provincial educational Commissioner, Li Ta-chao became the senior leader of the Communist movement in north China.

In May 1921 Li went to Shanghai to participate in a conference preliminary to the formal inauguration of the CCP, which took place two months later. However, he was unable to attend the First Congress, spending the summer with Teng Chung-hsia in a lecture tour in Szechwan on Yun Tai-ying’s invitation. Nonetheless, at the First CCP Congress he was elected regional secretary for north China.

Li was largely instrumental in securing for the Communists a foothold among the workers of the northern railroad network, which fell within the domain of Wu P’ei-fu. In April-May 1922 the latter had defeated Manchurian warlord Chang Tso-lin in the Fcngtien-Chihli War and announced the “protection of labor” as one of his policies, by which he hoped to court mass support. Through personal connections with Wu P ei-fu’s retinue Li succeeded in working out an agreement with Wu whereby Communists would be employed as secret inspectors on the railroads of north China. Their function would be to help Wu eliminate whatever influence Chang Tso-Iin’s ally, the Communications Clique, still exerted over the railway workers. In return, the Communists would have the opportunity to organize and influence the workers. Among the Communists whom Li Ta-chao recommended were An T‘i- ch’eng, Ch’en Wei-jen, Ho Meng-hsiung, and Pao Hui-seng.

Connections

When Li was only 11 years old, his grandfather had him married to Chao Chi-lan, the daughter of a neighboring peasant. They had two sons and four daughters. One of the sons spent some time in Japan and then joined the Communists at Yenan, their wartime capital. It is reported in non-Communist sources that Li Pao-hua, also a native of Lo-t’ing hsien, is a son of Li Ta-chao. Li Pao-hua emerged as an important Communist during the Sino-Japanese War, and after 1949 he was a vice-minister of Water Conservancy.

Spouse:

Chao Chi-lan