Shen Tse-min ( 1 898- 1 934) , writer and translator who worked to introduce Western concepts to the readers of the Hsiao-shuo yüeh-pao [short story magazine] and other journals. He later joined the Chinese Communist party and spent four years studying in the Soviet Union. The younger brother of Mao Tun (Shen Yen-ping, q.v.), Shen Tse-min was born in T'unghsiang, Chekiang. His father, an advocate of modern education, specifically stated just before his death in 1906 that his sons should take up technical studies in order to make themselves fit for a world increasingly dominated by the Western countries. Shen Tse-min, honoring his father's wishes, became a student at Ho-hai Engineering College at Nanking in 1917. He did not complete his technical studies, however; in 1919 he joined his brother in Shanghai.

At Ho-hai Engineering College, Shen Tse-min met Chang Wen-t'ien (q.v.), and the two young men became close friends. Both had something of a literary bent, and both, while at college, became members of the Young China Association (Shao-nien Chung-kuo hsueh-hui). Branches of the association in various cities kept in close touch with each other with regard to their activities and membership. Shen thus learned about the activities of such members as Mao Tse-tung, Li Ta-chao, Yün Tai-ying, Teng Chung-hsia and Chao Shih-yen. This knowledge made him restive and caused him to seek a new life in Shanghai.

Shen Tse-min joined the Socialist Youth Corps at Shanghai in 1920. That autumn, he and Chang Wen-t'ien went to Japan to study. Shen returned to China in time to attend the first conference of the Young China Association, held at Nanking in July 1 92 1 . Soon afterwards, he joined the newly formed Chinese Communist party. Also in 1921, Shen joined the editorial staff of the Hsiao-shuo yüeh-pao [short story magazine], then headed by his brother. In the following years, Shen became an important member of the Society for Literary Studies, which promoted "literature for life's sake" in the Hsiao-shuo yüeh-pao in opposition to "literature for art's sake," advocated by the Creation Society. Addressing himself seriously to the task of translating Western literary works into Chinese, he worked to introduce Western concepts to the readers of the Hsiao-shuo yüeh-pao and other journals. From 1921 to 1925 his contributions consisted of translations of, commentaries on, and criticisms of such Western authors as Oscar Wilde, Romain Rolland, Kropotkin, Andreiv, and the Swedish poet Heidenstam. He relied on English versions of all Western works, for he had a good command of English. He later became fluent in Russian. His translations into pai-hua [the vernacular] won him an important place in the ranks of the "new literature" pioneers in China.

In 1923 Shen Tse-min attended Shanghai University, where the Communists Yün Taiying and Ch'ü Ch'iu-pai (qq.v.) were instructors. When Ch'ü became an alternate member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang in 1924, he secured Shen a post in the propaganda department of the Kuomintang's Shanghai executive headquarters. Shen also served as editor of the Min-kuo jih-pao and as an instructor at the middle school of Shanghai University.

Late in 1925 Shen Tse-min and such other Shanghai University students as Ch'en Shao-yu and Ch'in Pang-hsien (qq.v.) were chosen by the Communists to go to Moscow for study at Sun Yat-sen University. Up to this time, Shen's affiliation with the Chinese Communist party had not seemed to have influenced his literary activities. The four years he now spent in Moscow, however, steeped him in Marxism- Leninism and caused his literary production to dwindle in both quantity and quality. Leadership of the Chinese group in Moscow went not to Shen, but to Ch'en Shao-yu, a much younger man who was ambitious and highly skilled in political maneuvering. This group, under the tutelage of Pavel Mif, the rector of Sun Yat-sen University, became known as the 28 Bolsheviks. In 1930, having returned to China with Mif, who had been appointed Comintern representative to China, the 28 Bolsheviks strove to wrest control of the Chinese Communist party from Li Li-san (q.v.). Shen Tse-min went to work in. the propaganda department of the Chinese Communist party in Shanghai. Although he made no appreciable contribution to the overthrow of the Li Li-san leadership, he was made head of the propaganda department when Ch'en Shao-yü became general secretary of the party in the summer of 1931. Shen also became a member of the Political Bureau.

Shen Tse-min went to the Kiangsi soviet area in November 1931 to attend the first All-China Congress of Soviets, at which he was elected to the central executive council of the central soviet government at Juichin, headed by Mao Tse-tung. Shen then went to the O-yü-wan soviet area as a member of the party committee of which Chang Kuo-t'ao (q.v.) was secretary. Chang later recalled that Shen constantly quoted Marx and Lenin, thus indicating his basic unsuitability for a life that depended more on guerrilla maneuvers than on the fine points of Communist theory. When Chang Kuo-t'ao and Hsu Hsiang-ch'ien evacuated the O-yü-wan soviet under Nationalist pressure and moved westward into northern Szechwan, Shen Tsemin, who was in poor health, was left behind with Hsu Hai-tung (q.v.). Shen's wife, Chang Ch'in-ch'iu, was in charge of the women's department of the Fourth Front Army, and she therefore went with Chang Kuo-t'ao and Hsu Hsiang-ch'ien to northern Szechwan. Shen was made secretary of the O-yü-wan special committee later in 1933. His health continued to decline, however, and he died in 1934, at the age of 36.