Unlike the CCP, which deliberately played down Chen Duxiu’s late-in-Life awakening, the CCP has always promoted Li Dazhao in a high profile, and his bust still stands on the campus of Peking University. As one of the early founders and leaders of the CCP, the CCP had this to say about Li Dazhao: “After the October Revolution in Russia, during the preparation and creation of the Communist International, there was no one in China who worked so actively to establish links with the Communist International and the Chinese revolution as Li Dazhao.” “Li Dazhao’s meeting with the Communist International emissary Vyshinsky marked the establishment of relations between the Communist International and the Chinese revolution.”
What is less known, however, is that the CCP deliberately concealed that Li Dazhao’s death was closely linked to the Soviet Union, hiding the fact that he was executed for “colluding with the Soviet government and spying on intelligence.” In addition, during the Cultural Revolution, Li was branded a “traitor” by the CCP.
Supporting the Soviet Union and going against Sun Yat-sen’s policy
After returning to China, he was recommended by Zhang Shizhao to Cai Yuanpei, the president of Peking University, and became the director of the library of Peking University, among other positions. He was later appointed as a professor and offered a course. However, in terms of academic status, he was not at all comparable to those prestigious professors, and was at best a third-class professor.
In March 1920, the Communist International sent someone to China to meet with Li Dazhao to plan the establishment of the Chinese branch of the Communist International. Li Dazhao introduced him to Chen Duxiu and together they discussed the establishment of the party. After the founding of the Communist Party, Li Dazhao served as a member of the second, third and fourth Central Committee.
Due to Sun Yat-sen’s wrong judgment and the policy of “tolerating the Communist Party”, under the instruction of the Communist International, CCP members were able to join the Kuomintang in their personal capacity, but Li Dazhao, Zhou Enlai and others, after joining the Kuomintang, openly violated Sun Yat-sen’s policy and divided the Kuomintang.
For example, when Soviet Russia instigated the independence of Outer Mongolia in 1924, members of the CCP held the opposite position while the KMT and the nation blamed Soviet Russia. In addition, when Soviet Russia established diplomatic relations with the Peking warlord government and concluded the “Sino-Russian Agreement,” Li Dazhao and other CCP members who had already joined the KMT immediately recognized the Peking government under the instruction of Soviet Russia, openly contradicted the statement they had made when they joined the KMT about opposing and not recognizing the Peking warlord government, and supported Soviet Russia in forcibly stationing troops in Outer Mongolia. At the behest of Soviet Russia, they favored the independence of Outer Mongolia and sold out China’s sovereignty over Outer Mongolia.
For example, when some Kuomintang members, such as Liu Chengyu, Feng Feiwei, Xie Yingbo and Xu Qinghe, met to warn Li Dazhao and others not to take advantage of cross-party opportunities to seize the Kuomintang’s unity in response to their contempt for the Kuomintang’s program and discipline, Li Dazhao and others accused Liu Chengyu and four others of “not abiding by party discipline in order to sow ill feelings between the state and the Communist Party”. Liu and the four others used the CCP’s arbitrary denigration of the Kuomintang in its publications as evidence, and Sun Yat-sen declared the four men innocent.
It was under the CCP’s “end-goal, no-means-justified” party spirit that the CCP gradually seized the organizational, party, military and public opinion power of the Kuomintang, and Li Dazhao played an important leadership and organizational role in this process.
Arrested for treason, he did not deliver a speech before hanging
In 1925, Li Dazhao was wanted by the Beiyang government for “gathering the masses under the pretext of communist doctrine and repeatedly causing trouble,” so he fled to the Soviet barracks in Dongjiaominxiang Alley. During the raid, the police took away the entire Soviet Embassy.
During the raid, the police took seven truckloads of files containing a large number of directives from the Soviet government and the Communist International to various factions in China. The files were later translated and compiled into a “Compilation of Documents on Soviet Conspiracies”, which consisted mainly of “Military Secret Detectives” and “Funds Used by Soviet Russia in China”. Among them are: a translation of the transcript of the motion of the Military Council of January 30, 1927; a translation of the report on the use of Feng Yuxiang’s plan by the Soviet Union; a translation of the transcript of the motion of the Military Council of March 13, 1927; a letter from the Accounting Office of the Soviet Embassy in Beijing to the military advisor of Guangdong, Galen, etc.
From these materials, Zhang Zuolin drew the following conclusions: 1. during the war between the Feng Army and the Southern Army, Li Dazhao was involved in military espionage; 2. Li colluded with the Soviet government in the Chinese civil war; 3. Li had an extraordinary relationship with Feng Yuxiang’s National Army; 4. Li carried out subversive government activities as the northern leader of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. Subversion of the Republic of China was clearly a crime of treason. Accordingly, Zhang Zuolin concluded that Li Dazhao should be killed.
However, since Li Dazhao also had the status of a professor at Peking University, former senior officials of the Beiyang government, such as Zhang Shizhao, Yang Du, Liang Shiyi and the president of Peking University, all intervened to intercede. Zhang Zuolin was very hesitant to execute Li Dazhao, so he sent telegrams to Zhang Xueliang, Zhang Zongchang, Sun Chuanfang and Yan Xishan for their opinions. Except for Yan Xishan who did not reply, all of them replied to show their attitude. Zhang Xueliang opposed killing Li, while Zhang Zongchang advocated killing Li.
Soon after, Li Dazhao and 20 other Kuomintang and Communist Party members were executed by hanging at the age of 38 for “collaborating with Soviet Russia”. Zhang Zuolin bought a gallows from the United States to fulfill his last wish. The Chinese Communist Party history says that “the executioners hanged Li Dazhao three times for 28 minutes in order to torture him”, while past articles commemorating Li Dazhao also say that the first Time he was not hanged, he gave a speech; the second time he gave another speech, and after that he gave a third speech.
However, according to the article “The Real Scenario of Li Dazhao’s Inauguration” by Dong Baoxue published in the 4th issue of Party History, 2007, Li Dazhao’s deathbed speech was “written” based on speculation, in order to show Li’s “heroic spirit and lofty ideals. The real situation is: there is a hanging board above the gallows and a can below. Once the button is pressed, the board falls down and the person is hanged. Li Dazhao could not have delivered his speeches again and again, and the people inside the Chinese Communist Party themselves exposed the lies of the Chinese Communist Party.
Li Dazhao was branded as a “great traitor” during the Cultural Revolution, and his eldest son was fought
Ironically, after the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, the dead Li Dazhao was branded a “great traitor” by the CCP, and his eldest son, Li Baohua, who was then the first secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, became the first provincial party secretary to be paraded in Beijing.
In 2011, an interview with Li Baohua’s daughter, Li Lequn, was published on the mainland’s People’s Illustrated website. According to Li Lequn’s recollection, her father was helpful and often sponsored people in need. After the Cultural Revolution began, Li Baohua was imprisoned and criticized by Li Dazhao, and Li Lequn, who was not eligible to join the army and could not work as a worker, had to go to rural areas in Yanbei, the poorest region in Shanxi, to work as a farmer without fear, and later moved to rural areas in Anhui Province, which is a little closer to his Home.
Also according to Li Baohua’s son Li Yazhong’s recollection, “My father lost his personal freedom for six years from the provincial party secretary to being shocked, seized, copied, dismissed from his post, placed under military control, and paraded around the province.” After being copied, Li Baohua and his wife were arrested by the rebel faction, and their children were driven out of their home and had to stay in a small locker room in the abandoned open-air swimming pool of the provincial party committee. “Later, the mother was released and had to live here as well.” Not only that, for five years, they did not allow Li Baohua to see his Family.
What happened to the family during the Cultural Revolution is etched in the bones of Li Baohua’s children, and this is how the Chinese Communist Party treated its “meritorious servants.
In addition to Li Baohua’s family, Li’s other children, Li Guanghua, Li Xinhua, Li Xinghua, Li Xinghua and Li Yanhua, were also affected to a greater or lesser extent, and their experiences rarely appeared in the press.
Conclusion
Li Dazhao, who died for the Chinese Communist Party, probably did not expect that he and his family would be treated so badly by the Chinese Communist Party after his death. I wonder how he would have felt if he had known. The CCP’s deliberate concealment of Li Dazhao’s execution shows that the CCP did not want the Chinese people to know about its betrayal of China and its defection to the Soviet Union, because if they did, it would undoubtedly be a slap in the face of “Wei Guang Zheng”. But the truth will not be covered up forever, and as the truth is revealed one by one, the true nature of the CCP is becoming more and more known to the Chinese people.
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