62 Facts About Chen Duxiu

Chen Duxiu was a Chinese revolutionary socialist, educator, philosopher and author, who co-founded the Chinese Communist Party with Li Dazhao in 1921.

Chen Duxiu was born on 8 October 1879 in the city of Anqing, in the Anhui province of the Qing Empire.

Chen Duxiu was the youngest of four children born to a wealthy family of officials.

Chen Duxiu's father died when Chen was two years old, and he was raised primarily by his grandfather; and, later, by his older brother.

Chen Duxiu was given a traditional Confucian education by his grandfather, several private tutors, and his elder brother.

Chen Duxiu was an exceptional student, but his poor experiences taking the Confucian civil service exams resulted in a lifelong tendency to advocate unconventional beliefs and to criticize traditional ideas.

Chen Duxiu took and passed the county-level imperial examination in 1896, and succeeded in the provincial-level examination the following year.

Chen Duxiu later wrote a sardonic memoir in which he reminisced about the filthy conditions, the dishonesty, and the incompetence that he observed when taking the imperial examination.

Chen Duxiu moved to Nanjing in 1902, after he was reported to have given speeches attacking the Qing government, and then to Imperial Japan the same year under a scholarship from the government to study at the Tokyo Shimbu Gakko, a military preparatory academy.

Chen Duxiu was an outspoken writer and political leader by the time of the Wuchang Uprising of 1911, which started the Xinhai Revolution and led to the collapse of the Qing dynasty.

In 1912, Chen Duxiu became secretary general to the new military governor of Anhui, while serving as the dean of a local high school.

Chen Duxiu used the Yue Fei Loyalist Society to establish an organization of students from Anhui public school, pro-rebel Qing soldiers and secret society members.

However, Chen Duxiu fled to Japan again in 1913 following the short-lived "Second Revolution" against Yuan Shikai, but returned to China soon afterwards.

Chen Duxiu created the Anhui Patriotic Society associated with the Anhui public school.

The journal criticized conservative Chinese morality and Confucianism; it supported individualism and a Western moral system valuing human rights, democracy and science, which Chen Duxiu believed Confucianism opposed.

Chen Duxiu joined the faculty of Peking University in the January 1917 as the university's dean, at the invitation of Cai Yuanpei, who paid for moving Chen Duxiu's journal to Beijing.

Chen Duxiu published a special edition of New Youth on Marxism with Li as the edition's general editor; the edition provided the most detailed analysis of Marxism then published in China, and the journal's popularity ensured its wide dissemination.

Chen Duxiu was elected as the first General Secretary at the first party congress in Shanghai.

Chen Duxiu remained the undisputed leader of the party until 1927, and was often referred to as "China's Lenin" during this period.

Chen Duxiu came into conflict with Mao Zedong in 1925 over Mao's essay "An Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society".

Chen Duxiu eventually became the voice of the Trotskyists in China, attempting to regain support and influence within the party, but failed.

Chen Duxiu continued to oppose measures like "New Democracy" and the "Bloc of Four Classes" advocated by Mao Zedong.

In 1932, Chen Duxiu was arrested by the government of the Shanghai International Settlement, where he had been living since 1927, and extradited to Nanjing.

Chen Duxiu was one of the few early leaders of the Communist party to survive the turmoil of the 1930s, but he was never able to regain any influence within the party he had founded.

Chen Duxiu responded by letter to the Central Committee of the CCP that he agreed with its line of resistance but would not renounce Trotskyism.

Chen Duxiu then travelled from place to place until the summer of 1938, when he arrived at the wartime capital of Chongqing and took a position teaching at a junior high school.

In poor health and with few remaining friends, Chen Duxiu later retired to Jiangjin, a small town west of Chongqing, where he died in 1942 at the age of 62.

In 1956, Mao Zedong said that Chen Duxiu represented the gravest of all of the deviations to the Right in the party's history up to that time.

Chen Duxiu felt that his articles should reflect the needs of society.

Chen Duxiu believed that the progress of society could not be achieved without those who accurately report social weaknesses and sicknesses.

Chen Duxiu criticized the traditional Chinese officials as corrupt and guilty of other wrongdoings.

Chen Duxiu was under constant attack from conservatives in China, and had to flee to Japan four times.

Chen Duxiu's articles strove to attract publicity, and often arouse discussion by using hyperbole.

Chen Duxiu lashed out against the backwardness and corruption in China.

Whether in praise or strong opposition, Chen Duxiu encouraged all to write.

Chen Duxiu thought that teamwork was very important in journalism, and consequently asked for help from many talented authors and journalists, including Hu Shih and Lu Xun.

On 31 March 1904, Chen Duxiu founded Anhui Suhua Bao, a newspaper that he established with Fang Zhiwu and Wu Shou in Tokyo to promote revolutionary ideas using vernacular Chinese, which was simple to understand and easy for the general public to read.

Chen Duxiu had three main objectives in publishing Anhui Suhua Bao: to let his countrymen in Anhui keep abreast of the politics of the Qing dynasty; to spread knowledge to the paper's readers through vernacular Chinese; and, to promote revolutionary ideas to the public.

Chen Duxiu believed that most Chinese believed that the importance of the family was greater than that of the state, and that this limited their interest in political events.

Chen Duxiu found Chinese people in general to be excessively superstitious.

Chen Duxiu urged Chinese people to participate in politics through the publication of Anhui Suhua Bao.

In early 1914, Chen Duxiu went to Japan, where he worked as an editor and writer in the Tokyo Jiayin Magazine, which was published by Zhang Shizhao.

Chen Duxiu once wrote an article entitled "Self Consciousness on Patriotism" which conveyed a strong sense of patriotism and encouraged people to fight for their freedom.

In 1915, Chen Duxiu started an influential monthly periodical in the French Concession of Shanghai, The Youth Magazine, which was later renamed New Youth.

In 1917, Chen Duxiu became a lecturer of Chinese Literature, and a Dean of Peking University.

Chen Duxiu continued to express his discontent towards the government in his later publications.

On 27 November 1918, Chen Duxiu started another magazine, the Weekly Review with Li Dazhao in order to criticize the politics of his time in a more direct way and to promote democracy, science, and modern literature.

Chen Duxiu edited Tokyo Jiayin Magazine and Science Magazine.

Chen Duxiu set a precedent for future writers via the intentionally controversial nature of his publications.

Chen Duxiu insisted on telling the truth to the Chinese people and strengthening the Chinese media for later generations.

Chen Duxiu believed that the purpose of mass media was to reveal the truth.

At a young age, Chen Duxiu had already established his first periodical, Guomin Ribao, in which he criticized many social and political problems evident in the late Qing dynasty.

Chen Duxiu's writing brought the standards of Chinese journalism closer to those of other, more liberal societies of his time.

Chen Duxiu attacked his rationale by publishing "Talking Politics" in the 8th edition.

Later, Chen Duxiu wrote to Hu Shih about his dissatisfaction with Hu's intimacy with many conservative faculty members of Peking University.

Especially troubling to Chen Duxiu was Hu's relationship with Liang Qichao, a supporter of the Duan Qirui government and their anti-new wave ideology, which made Chen Duxiu greatly dissatisfied.

Chen Duxiu viewed human history as a whole thing, as a single entity.

Chen Duxiu suggested six guiding principles in New Youth with an article called "Warning the youth".

Chen Duxiu introduced many new ideas into popular Chinese culture, including individualism, democracy, humanism, and the use of the scientific method, and he advocated the abandonment of Confucianism for the adoption Communism.

Chen Duxiu called for the destruction of tradition, and his attacks on traditionalism gave new options to the youth of his time.

In My Fundamental Opinions written in November 1940, Chen Duxiu wrote about his views concerning democracy, socialism and the Soviet Union.

Chen Duxiu reflected on the Communist movement and provided his thoughts on related issues, fundamentally rejecting some of the core tenets of Communism.