Li Ta-chao 李大釗 T. Shou-ch'ang 守常 Li Ta-chao (1889-28 April 1927), founding member of the Chinese Communist party who, as librarian and professor at Peking University, strongly influenced the youth of China at the time of the May Fourth Movement. He was the principal director of Communist organizational and propaganda activities in north China until 1927, when Chang Tso-lin had him arrested and executed.

Born into a peasant family in Lot'ing in northeast Hopei province, Li Ta-chao was orphaned as a small child and was brought up by his grandparents. At the age of 16, he sold the family property and entered a middle school at Yungp'ing, near his native town. Two years later, he went to Tientsin to attend the Peiyang School of Law and Government (Pei-yang facheng chuan-men hsueh-hsiao), from which he was graduated in 1913. Li came to the attention of Sun Hung-i (1870-1936; T. Po-lan), a wellknown progressive leader in Tientsin who headed the Chihli (Hopei) provincial assembly during the final years of the Ch'ing dynasty. With the establishment of the republic early in 1912, Sun joined with Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, T'ang Hua-lung (qq.v.), and other leading proponents of parliamentary government in forming the Democratic party, which was reorganized as the Progressive party in 1913. Through Sun Hung-i, Li Ta-chao was introduced to T'ang Hua-lung, who became Li's sponsor and sent him to Japan to continue his education.

In the autumn of 1913 Li enrolled as a first-year student in political economy at Waseda University in Tokyo. In Japan he soon became acquainted with the journalist Chang Shih-chao (q.v.), and in the summer of 1914 he began to contribute articles on political science and economics to Chang's magazine, Chia-yin tsa-chih (The Tiger Magazine). When Yuan Shih-k'ai promulgated a new "constitutional compact," drafted for him by his political advisers Frank J. Goodnow and Ariga Nagao, Li Ta-chao wrote an article in which he refuted the contention of Yuan's foreign advisers that conditions in China were not favorable to a republican form of government and criticized the "constitutional compact," which concentrated government powers in Yuan's hands. In the following year, Li's opposition to Yuan's regime grew more pronounced, especially after the news of Japan's Twenty-one Demands reached students in Japan late in 1915. Li called on Chinese students throughout Japan to oppose the Twenty-one Demands. He also wrote an open letter from Chinese students in Japan to their countrymen at home, which was wired to China and widely circulated in an effort to arouse public opinion against Yuan's acceptance of these demands.

After returning to Peking in the summer of 1916, Li Ta-chao became a secretary to T'ang Hua-lung, who at that time was helping Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, Sun Hung-i, and others to organize the Hsien-fa yen-chiu hui [association for constitutional research], whose members became known as the Research clique. Probably through his connections with T'ang, Li became editor of a Peking daily backed by members of the Research clique, the Ch'en-chung jih-pao, which was reorganized late in 1918 as the Ch'en-pao [morning post]. Under Li's editorship, the paper increased its circulation and acquired a reputation for liberalism.

In February 1918 Li accepted an invitation from Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei (q.v.), the new chancellor of Peking University, to serve as head of the university library. As chief librarian and later (1920) as professor of history, economics, and political science, Li was to be associated with China's foremost institution of higher learning for a decade.

Li Ta-chao entered into the academic life of Peking University at a time of great intellectual ferment. The principal medium for the new literary and cultural movements was the Hsin ch'ing-nien [new youth], founded by Ch'en Tu-hsiu (q.v.). Early in 1916 Li became a member of the magazine's editorial staff, which also included Hu Shih (q.v.) and other Peking University professors. He also became an occasional contributor to the Hsin ch'ing-nien. In one article, "Ch'ing-ch'un" [youth], published in September 1916, he outlined a theory of cosmic change through gradually ascending cycles of birth, maturity, decay, and rebirth. A similar article, "Chin" [the present], appeared in the issue of April 1918. Because the editors of the Hsin ch'ing-nien had been concerned primarily with social and ideological change, they had agreed at the outset on an editorial policy of non-involvement in contemporary political affairs. But when the policies of premier Tuan Ch'i-jui (q.v.) and his military supporters aroused the anger and dismay of many parliamentarians at Peking, Li Ta-chao and Ch'en Tu-hsiu found it increasingly difficult to refrain from airing their views on the political situation. In December 1918 the two men established the Mei-chou p'ing-lun [weekly critic], in which they criticized the Tuan government for its domestic policies and for its secret dealings with Japan. Through their writings in the new periodical, Li and Ch'en helped to stimulate a new interest in national affairs and to create a climate of opinion among China's youth which led to the patriotic student demonstrations of the May Fourth Movement of 1919.

Li Ta-chao's influence on the growing student movement was caused by his close personal contact with the students and his willingness to participate directly in their activities, as well as by his writings and lectures. In the summer of 1918 he had joined a small group of students and young intellectuals to discuss the formation of the Shao-nien Chung-kuo hsueh-hui [young China association], which would organize patriotic opposition to Tuan Ch'i-jui's pro-Japanese regime. When that association was formally established in July 1919, Li became a prominent member and a contributor to its magazine, Shao-nien Chung-kuo [young China]. He also gave aid to a number of other student organizations. For example, he secured financial assistance for the Peking University students who started the Hsin-ch'ao [renaissance] early in 1919 and gave editorial advice to a radical student society which began to publish the Chueh-wu [awakening] early in 1920. Li also lent a sympathetic ear to the personal problems of individual students. To help one young student in straitened circumstances — a Hunanese named Mao Tse-tung — Li arranged for his employment as a clerk in the university library. As a result of his active interest in the students and their activities, Li's office in the university library became a center for conferences and meetings of student leaders during and after the period of the May Fourth Movement.

It was while he was thus establishing himself as a popular and influential figure among the students at Peking University that Li Ta-chao began to give serious attention to the doctrines of Marxism. Although he had been exposed to Marxist ideas during his stay in Japan, his interest appears to have remained academic until the discouraging political situation in China and the success of the Russian Revolution suggested to him that Marxism might offer the solution to political and social problems in China. In an article in the October 1918 issue of Hsin ch'ing-nien entitled "The Victory of Bolshevism," Li expressed his enthusiasm for the creation of a new political order in Russia, organized on the basis of Marxist economic and social theories. In 1918 he also founded the Ma-k'e-shih chu-i yen-chiu-hui [Marxist research society]. He edited a special issue of Hsin ch'ing-nien devoted almost exclusively to Marxism in May 1919. Li himself contributed an important introductory article, "My Views on Marxism," which indicated that although he was far from convinced of the general validity of Marxism, he was sympathetic to its aims. By the end of 1919, his writings revealed that he had accepted the basic tenets of historical materialism, and by the middle of the following year he appears to have espoused the Marxist viewpoint completely.

Meanwhile, the events of the May Fourth Movement had strengthened Li's vision of a revitalized modern China, brought into being through the surging tide of China's youth, and the student demonstrations had convinced him that organization was the key to effective political action in China. However, in the course of his conversion to Marxism, Li came to the conclusion that further study of Marxist theories should be prompted among groups of students and young intellectuals before the work of political organization began. To this end, he established the Ma-k'o-ssu hsueh-shou yen-chiu-hui [society for the study of Marxism] in the summer of 1920. At its meetings'he and other professors gave lectures on Marxism to students at Peking University.

Li's conviction that Marxist study should be given priority over political organization soon was altered through the influence of his former associate Ch'en Tu-hsiu, who had left Peking University for Shanghai in the autumn of 1919. Early in 1920 Li had been approached by Gregory Voitinsky, an agent of the Comintern who had recently arrived in Peking. Li had sent him to Ch'en Tu-hsiu with a letter of introduction. After several discussions with Voitinsky, Ch'en had decided to organize a Communist party nucleus in Shanghai in the summer of 1920. In September, one of Li Tachao's students, Chang Kuo-t'ao (q.v.), returned from a trip to Shanghai to inform Li of Ch'en's plans to set up a network of Communist cells in all major cities in preparation for the formal establishment of a Chinese Communist party. In response to Ch'en Tu-hsiu's requests, Li Ta-chao, with the help of Chang Kuo-t'ao, formed a small Communist group in Peking and, in accord with Ch'en's program, also organized a branch of the Socialist Youth Corps, to serve as a training ground for future cadres. Li Ta-chao was able to turn the interests of many students in the direction of Marxism and to the new Communist organization. During the winter of 1920-21 he brought together a group of students, including Chang Kuo-t'ao and Teng Chung-hsia (q.v.), to carry the message of Marxism to the railroad workers in north China. As coordinator of the Peking nucleus, Li corresponded with other leaders in Shanghai and Canton, and they decided to convene a congress of Communist delegates in Shanghai in July 1921. Because Li was too busy with academic duties in Peking to attend the conference, the Peking group sent Chang Kuo-t'ao, who acted as chairman of the congress at which the Chinese Communist party was formally inaugurated.

A man of mild and amiable disposition, Li Ta-chao was able to move with ease among the many and varied political and cultural groups with which he had been associated since his pre- Communist days. He remained an active and influential member of the Shao-nien Chung-kuo hsueh-hsi until 1923, when he and other Communists formally withdrew from that organization. Through his former benefactor Sun Hung-i, he maintained cordial relations with the Research clique, and he continued to be friendly with Hu Shih and other liberal professors at Peking University, joining them in support of their efforts to promote "government by good men" in the spring and summer of 1922. He was, moreover, on good terms with members of the Kuomintang, and, through a former classmate at the Peiyang School of Law and Government who had become director of Wu P'ei-fu's political department, he also was able to communicate with the Chihli military clique, then the dominant military power in north China.

Li's wide range of acquaintances and his personal prestige among the students were political assets of no small importance during the first years of the Chinese Communist party, when its membership was tiny and its influence was insignificant. He was elected to the Central Committee at the party's Second National Congress, held in Shanghai in July 1922. Li was unable to attend the congress, but he attended a special plenum of the Central Committee which was convened at Hangchow in August by the Comintern representative Maring to discuss the new Comintern policy of cooperation with the Kuomintang. His colleagues on the Central Committee strongly opposed such policy, but, according to Chang Kuo-t'ao, Li not only supported Maring but also helped to win Ch'en Tu-hsiu, the party secretary, over to the Comintern position. At the Hangchow plenum, Li Ta-chao suggested that the principle of cooperation be extended to include Wu P'ei-fu (q.v.), then regarded with considerable favor by Li's liberal friends in Peking. Russian agents approached Wu, and Li worked hard to establish a harmonious relationship between the Chinese Communist party and Wu's subordinates in the Peking area. However, Wu P'ei-fu's suppression of the Peking- Hankow railway workers' strike in February 1923 ended all attempts to collaborate with the Chihli militarists and strengthened the resolve of Li and other Communist leaders to work enclusively with the Kuomintang.

Li Ta-chao was to play an active part in implementing the Communist-Kuomintang entente of 1922-26. Immediately after the Hangchow plenum, he went to visit Sun Yat-sen, who had just arrived in Shanghai from Canton, and was instrumental in persuading the Kuomintang leader to agree to a working relationship with both Russian and Chinese Communists. Sun consented to allow members of the Chinese Communist party to join the Kuomintang on an individual basis. In August 1922 Li became the first of the many Communists to be admitted to the Kuomintang. His membership was sponsored by Chang Chi (q.v.). In the autumn of 1922 Li returned to his teaching duties at Peking University. With the help of Teng Chung-hsia and other members of the Chinese Communist party's north China bureau, he renewed his efforts to stimulate interest in Marxism among the students at various colleges in Peking. Among the campuses they visited was the Mongolian and Tibetan School, where they introduced the principles of Marxism-Leninism to such young Mongols as Ulanfu (q.v.), who later became a member of the Chinese Communist party and its leading activist in organizing the Inner Mongolian People's Revolutionary party. Late in 1923 Li Ta-chao left for Canton to attend the First National Congress of the Kuomintang as a delegate from the Peking municipal district. Li and two other Communists, T'an P'ing-shan (q.v.) and Yü Shu-te, were elected to the 24-man Central Executive Committee of the reorganized Kuomintang. At the close of the congress on 30 January 1924, Li was also chosen a member of the six-man central executive committee of the Peking branch of the Kuomintang. In September 1924 Li returned to north China from a trip to the Soviet Union, where he had spent the summer touring the country and attending the Fifth Congress of the Comintern in Moscow. In Peking, Wu P'ei-fu was preparing the military forces of the Chihli clique for a renewed struggle for power against Chang Tso-lin (q.v.), Tuan Ch'i-jui, and Sun Yat-sen. Because of the massacre of the railway workers in February 1923, Li and Wu had become bitter enemies, and in 1924 W'u had issued orders for Li's arrest. To avoid capture, Li hid himself in a secluded temple in the hills of Ch'angli, not far from his native Lot'ing, where he remained until the conclusion of the Fengtien- Chihli war. With the overthrow of Wu P'ei-fu and the Chihli clique by the armies of Chang Tso-lin and Feng Yü-hsiang (q.v.) and the establishment of Tuan Ch'i-jui as provisional chief executive in Peking, Li returned to Peking University to resume his teaching and political activities.

During the next two years, Li Ta-chao continued to enhance his prestige as an intellectual leader among the students in Peking and his reputation among political conservatives and the foreign community as a dangerous radical and agitator. His authority within the Kuomintang was reaffirmed at that party's Second National Congress in January 1926, at which he was reelected to the Central Executive Committee. As a prominent figure in both the Chinese Communist party and the Kuomintang, he worked to achieve closer cooperation between the two party organizations in Peking. His work was complicated by the open split of the
Kuomintang into right- and left-wing factions following the death of Sun Yat-sen in March 1925. After the departure of the right-wing leaders from Peking toward the end of that year, Li and the Communists had been able to increase their influence in the Kuomintang left wing; and with the flight of the non- Communist left-wing leaders after the incident of 18 March 1926, the Kuomintang organization in Peking came under the control of its Communist members. While Li Ta-chao and his Communist colleagues were strengthening their hold on the Kuomintang in Peking, the existence of both parties became increasingly precarious as a result of the military and political instability in north China. In 1925 a rift between Feng Yü-hsiang and Chang Tso-lin culminated in an open break between the two leaders. Li Tachao worked to encourage closer ties between the Kuomintang-Communist coalition and the Kuominchün of Feng Yü-hsiang against the power of Chang Tso-lin and his new ally Wu P'ei-fu. On 12 March 1925 units of Feng's Kuominchün blockading Taku, the port of Tientsin, were attacked by Chang Tso-lin's forces with the support of Japanese gunboats; and four days later, the ministers of Japan and the Western powers sent a joint ultimatum to the Tuan Ch'i-jui government in Peking demanding the removal of the blockade, in accordance with a provision of the Boxer Protocol of 1901. In response to this instance of "foreign imperialism," Hsü Ch'ien, Ku Meng-yü (qq.v.), Li Ta-chao, and other leaders of the left-Kuomintang called a mass meeting of students and citizens at the T'ien-an-men in Peking and led the demonstrators to the office of Tuan Ch'i-jui to demand immediate rejection of the ultimatum. The metropolitan police fired upon the demonstrators, killing or wounding more than 200, and Li narrowly escaped being trampled to death by the fleeing crowd. On 19 March 1926 Tuan Ch'i-jui issued orders for the arrest of Li Ta-chao and other prominent leaders of the'Kuomintang. Relying on the security provided by friendly Kuominchün forces in the area, Li remained in the vicinity of Peking. In articles published in a local paper, Cheng-chih sheng-huo [political life], he denounced Chang Tso-lin for collaborating with Japanese militarists at the expense of China's national interests. After the defeat of the Kuominchün forces in April 1926 and during the ensuing stalemate between the forces of Wu P'ei-fu and Chang Tso-lin in the north, the Communist and Kuomintang organizations in Peking continued to function, but they were forced to rely increasingly upon the protection afforded them by the Soviet embassy. And when the vigorously anti-Communist Chang Tso-lin moved his forces into Peking late in December 1926, Li and his comrades had to flee for their lives to the Soviet embassy compound. Li continued to direct party activities in north China until 6 April 1927, when Chang Tso-lin ordered a force composed of the Peking municipal police and his own gendarmes to raid the Soviet embassy. The raiding party arrested Li and several other Chinese revolutionaries and seized truckloads of documents in Chinese and Russian. More than 300 of these documents were collected and published in 1928 by the Peking municipal police headquarters as the Su-lien yin-mou wen-cheng hui-pien [compendium of documentary evidence of the Soviet conspiracy]. Following Li's arrest and imprisonment, more than 300 prominent friends and sympathizers in north China petitioned to obtain his release, but to no avail. On 28 April 1927, together with 19 of his comrades, Li died on the gallows at the age of 38. He was survived by his wife, a simple peasant woman whom he had married while in his teens, and by three sons and two daughters. His remains, kept for several years in a temple outside Peking, were finally buried in the spring of 1933 at Wan-an cemetery in the Western Hills.

Almost all of Li Ta-chao's writings were articles written for magazines and newspapers. A listing of some 280 of these articles written between 1912 and 1926 is included in the first volume of Chang Ching-lu's Chung-kuo hsien-tai ch'n-pan shih-liao, which was published at Peking in 1954. Shou-chang ch'uan-chi, a collection of Li Ta-chao's most important writings, with a preface by Lu Hsün (Chou Shu-jen, q.v.), was published at Shanghai in 1939. It was reprinted as the Shou-ch' ang wen-chi in 1949 and again in 1950. Li Ta-chao hsuan-chi [selected works of Li Ta-chao] was published in Peking in 1962. Li's scholarly interest lay primarily in the fields of history and politics. He wrote a number of brief theoretical essays expounding the concept of dialectical materialism and its application to China's past, the best known being his Shih-hsueh yao-lun [essentials of historiography], published in 1924. As a student of politics, he was particularly interested in the concept of democracy as it related to socialist theory. In such articles and essays as P'ing-min chu-i [democracy], published in 1922, he distinguished between "bourgeois" democracy, which, according to Li, was actually an oligarchy of a privileged middle-class minority, and "proletarian" democracy or "ergatocracy" (kung-jen cheng-chih), in which all people who do useful work in a society participate equally in the conduct of its public affairs. Although Marxist theory heavily influenced all of Li's writings after 1919, his articles devoted to the interpretation of Marxism and its application to China reveal that his understanding of Communist doctrine was incomplete. Nevertheless, Chinese Communist historians have accorded Li's Marxist writings a certain historical value as part of the legacy of the early Communist movement in China. An important study of Li Ta-chao is Maurice Meisner's Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism, which was published in the United States in 1967.