1. Li Dazhao or Li Ta-chao was a Chinese intellectual and revolutionary who participated in the New Culture Movement in the early years of the Republic of China, established in 1912.
16 Facts About Li Dazhao
1. 2.
Li Dazhao co-founded the Chinese Communist Party with Chen Duxiu in July 1921.
3.
Li Dazhao helped build a united front between the CCP and Sun Yat-sen's Nationalist Party in early 1924.
4.
Li Dazhao's father died a few months before he was born, and his mother died when he was a baby.
5.
Li Dazhao received his traditional education in three village schools in Laoting County for a decade.
6.
Li Dazhao started his modern education at Yongpingfu Middle school in 1905.
7.
Li Dazhao did not finish his learning as he was expelled from Waseda for absence from his classes caused by his participation in the campaign against Yuan Shikai's imperial endeavors, for which he returned to Shanghai in early 1916.
8.
Li Dazhao refused to take courses from professors like Ukita Kazutami, an ardent advocate of the "Twenty-One Demands," and Hagino Nagayasu, a legal advisor to Yuan Shikai.
9.
Li Dazhao taught many different courses not only at Peking University, but at four other universities in Beijing.
10.
Li Dazhao was invited as a speaker by associations, colleges, and other organizations throughout China.
11.
Li Dazhao was one of the earliest scholars to explore the Bolshevik government in the Soviet Union as a possible model for his own nation.
12.
Li Dazhao built China's earliest socialist and communist groups in Beijing even before the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai.
13.
Li Dazhao urged Feng Yuxiang to adopt a strategy to fight against Zhang Zuolin from Northwestern China to Henan Province, which was crucial for the success of the Northern Expedition to topple down the warlord regime in Beijing.
14.
Li Dazhao helped organize anti-government demonstrations, in particular on March 18,1926, in which government guards fired into the crowd, killing forty-seven people and wounding more than 200.
15.
Li Dazhao took refuge in the Soviet Embassy in Beijing yet continued to lead political maneuvers in North China to topple the warlord's government.
16.
Li Dazhao's turn to communism was dramatic; from 1918 to 1919, he became China's first communist, about a year earlier than Chen Duxiu.