Background
Qu was born in the southeast corner of Changzhou, Jiangsu Province.
Qu was born in the southeast corner of Changzhou, Jiangsu Province.
Qu Qiubai was influenced by Zhang Tailei while studying at the Changzhou Middle School. When Qu was twelve, his family lost all means of income, and eventually his family debts led his mother to commit suicide. Qu Qiubai was unable to finish his high school education.
Qu went to Beijing in 1917 and studied at the tuition-free Russian Language Institute, an affiliate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During the May Fourth Movement,Qu Qiubai was head of the institute’s student union and was elected representative of the Beijing Student Union. In March 1920, he joined the Marxist Theory Study Group organized by Li Dazhao. In October, Qu went to Russia as a correspondent for the Beijing Morning Post (Beijing chen bao)and Current Events (Shishi xin bao). He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Russia in 1922, through the introduction of Zhang Tailei and Zhang Guotao.
Qu was Chen Duxiu's interpreter when Chen attended the Fourth Congress of the Comintern in Moscow in November-December 1922. Upon Chen Duxiu's request, Qu Qiubai returned to China the following year and was elected to the Central Committee in the Third National Congress of the CCP. He joined the Guomindang (GMD) in accordance with the Comintern policy of forming a United Front with the reorganized GMD. In 1924, he was elected as an alternate member of the Central Executive Committee of the GMD. He also became the chief editor of the CCP journal and newspaper New Youth (Xin qingnian)and Hot Blood Daily (Rexue r/’fcao). In 1925, he became the vice-chairman of the Propaganda Department of the CCP. He published a series of articles in 1925 and 1926 criticizing the right-wing faction of the GMD represented by Dai Jitao. He was also the head of the department of sociology at Shanghai University during the same period.
In February 1927, Qu Qiubai participated in leading the second workers’ uprising in Shanghai. The uprising failed. In April, he supported the publication of Mao Zedong's Report of an Investigation into the Peasant Movement in Hunan,w which was rejected by Chen Duxiu's personal assistant Peng Shuzhi because the report could upset the GMD. In the same month, the GMD launched a coup that against the Communists. The split between the GMD and the CCP coincided with the change of leadership in the Comintern. The political and policy changes turned Qu Qiubai against Chen Duxiu, and Qu became an opposition faction leader in the Party. The CCP convened the Fifth National Congress in Wuhan,in which Qu criticized Chen Duxiu's “right opportunism.” After receiving instructions from the Comintern representative Lominadze, Qu chaired the August 7th meeting, which elected a new provisional Politburo headed by Qu himself. The meeting marked the end of Chen Duxiu's “right opportunism ” but also the beginning of Qu's "left putschism.” Under Qu Qiubai’s leadership, the CCP hastily organized an armed uprising in Guangzhou. The uprising was quickly suppressed and its organizer Zhang Tailei was killed. In June 1928, the Sixth National Congress of the CCP was convened in Moscow.
Qu Qiubai’s “left opportunism” was criticized and Qu himself was replaced by Xiang Zhongfa. Qu remained in the Politburo and was elected to the Comintern’s executive committee in the Sixth Congress of the Comintern in July. During his stay in Moscow, he devised a Chinese romanization system. In 1929, he was involved in the factional conflicts in the Communist University for Chinese Laborers (formerly Sun Yat-sen University). He criticized Wang Ming's group which was supported by P. Mif, the president of the university and head of the Chinese section of the eastern department of the Comintern. In autumn, when the Russian Communist Party started a party purge, Mif and Wang Ming took the opportunity to suppress their opponents at the university (all Chinese students were required to join the Russian CP). Qu Qiubai was criticized and his younger brother Qu Jingbai disappeared during the purge.
In July 1930, Qu was sent by the Comintern back to China to correct Li Lisan’s “left opportunism,” but the Comintern was dissatisfied with his work and accused him of political ambivalence. In 1931, Wang Ming and Mif convened an enlarged session of the Fourth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee and removed Qu from the Politburo. Qu Qiubai turned his attention to the literary arena in Shanghai. He met Mao Dun and Feng Xue-feng, the Party secretary for the Communist writers in the Chinese League of Left-Wing Writers, and helped the league in establishing its direction. Qu also established contact with Lu Xun but they did not meet until 1932. At one stage, he was in charge of the Committee of Cultural Activities.
Qu Qiubai and Lu Xun became close friends. Between 1932 and 1934, they cooperated in criticizing the GMD,s “cultural encirclement campaigns” against the Communists the “nationalist” literaturу “the third category" and the left ttclosed-doorismw of the league. In 1933, Qu wrote a preface to a collection of Lu Xun's essays, which was the first positive appraisal of Lu Xun by a Communist leader and made Lu Xun an irrefutable spiritual leader of the Left-Wing Writers. Qu also continued to contribute to party journals such as Struggle (douzheng) but his views were criticized by the Party as “right opportunism” in 1933.
While he was still in Shanghai, he was appointed as the Peopled Education Commissar in the Central Soviet Government in Ruijin. He was summoned to Ruijin in January 1934. When the Chinese Red Army left Ruijin, he was ordered to stay and was later captured by the GMD troops. He was executed on June 8, 1935 in Changting, Fujian province, but before the execution, he wrote his famous and controversial self-analysis, 44 Redundant Words.”