Li Dazhao (
October 29, 1888 -
April 28, 1927) was a
Chinese intellectual who co-founded the
Communist Party of China with
Chen Duxiu in
1921.
Li was born in
Leting (a county of
Tangshan), Hebei province to a peasant family. From
1913 to
1917 Li studied political economy at
Waseda University in
Japan before returning to China in
1918.
As head librarian at the
Peking University Library, he was among the first of the Chinese intellectuals who rejected the
Bolshevik government in the
Soviet Union. He also wrote in Chen's New Youth and his works had a major influence on other Chinese as well.
Mao Zedong was an assistant librarian during Li's tenure at the library, and Li was one of Mao's earliest and most prominent influences. By many accounts, Li was a
nationalist and believed that the
peasantry in China were to play an important role in China's revolution. As with many intellectuals of his time, the roots of Li's revolutionary thinking were actually mostly in
Kropotkin's communist anarchism, but after the events of the
May Fourth Movement and the failures of the anarchistic experiments of many intellectuals, like his compatriots, he turned more towards
Marxism. Of course, the success of the Bolshevik Revolution was a major factor in the changing of his views. In later years, Li combined both his original nationalist and newly acquired Marxist views in order to contribute a strong political view to China (Meisner 1967, 178).
Under the leadership of Li and Chen, the CPC developed a close relationship with the
Comintern. At the direction of the Comintern, Li and Chen were inducted into the
Kuomintang in 1922. Li was elected to the KMT's Central Executive Committee in 1924.
Tensions between the Comintern, the KMT, and the CPC presented opportunities for political intrigue and opportunism. With the outbreak of the
Chinese Civil War, Li was captured during a raid on the Soviet embassy in Peking (
Beijing) and, with nineteen others, he was executed on the orders of the warlord of
Chang Tso-Lin on April 28, 1927.
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