A Critical Analysis of the Political Thought of Li Dazhao During the Period of the 1911 Revolution

Li Dazhao was in the vanguard of the Chinese Communist movement, a great Marxist theoretician, and an important founder of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The study of the developmental path of his thought, especially the process of transition from a non-Marxist to a Marxist, has both a theoretical significance and a current relevance in understanding the rise of the Communist movement in China. In this regard, since the establishment of the PRC more than thirty years ago, our scholarly world has almost consistently considered that Li Dazhao developed from a radical revolutionary democrat (jijin geming minzhu zhuyi zhe) of the capitalist class and metamorphized into a Marxist. It has been argued that during the early 1911 revolutionary period he was already a mature "radical revolutionary democrat." Concerning this argument, every specialist points as evidence that Li "exposed" and "criticized" Yuan Shikai, the chief warlord official, writing things such as "The Great Lament" (Da aibian), an "official denunciation of the warlord dictatorship."1 This judgment diverges widely from reality, and for the most part, in each type of "argument" the misunderstandings arise from misconstruing Li Dazhao's original text, the most important of which are taken from his early writings. Terms such as "rioters" (baomin), "bullies" (haobaozhe) and "clique of arrogant bullies" (qiaohuang haobao zhi liu) are considered as representative criticisms of Yuan Shikai's clique, thus distorting the original essay as critical of Yuan Shikai as the head warlord official. In this way one "pulls one hair and moves the whole body," taking the whole of Li Dazhao's early thought and misconstruing its nature. In reality, the Li Dazhao of the 1911 period was not a radical revolutionary democrat, but only an idealistic youth full of ardent patriotism. He had both democratic and patriotic ideas and was wholeheartedly hoping for the early realization of a unified nation, in consequence exerting all his will toward reconstruction.2