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

Abstract

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). 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 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 ...