Communist Party Involvement
Qu worked hard in the language institute, studying both French and Russian, spending his spare time studying Buddhist philosophy and classical Chinese, an interest he had cultivated since childhood, as well as the works of Bertrand Russell whose discussion of physics and perception seemed reminiscent of Buddhism to Qu.
His earliest contacts with revolutionary circles was during his participation in discussions of Marxist analysis hosted by Li Dazhao, head librarian at Beijing University. Mao Zedong was also present at these meetings. Qu later took a job as a journalist for a Beijing newspaper Morning News (晨報) and was stationed in Moscow as a correspondent, even though this would jeopardize the career in civil-service his earlier training was preparing him for. Qu was one of the first Chinese to report from Moscow about life in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, where he observed the harshness of living conditions. While in Russia, he also visited Leo Tolstoy's home at Yasnaya Polyana with his granddaughter Sofya, saw Lenin addressing a group of delegates, heard Feodor Chaliapin sing Alexander Pushkin's poems set to music, and witnessed Pyotr Kropotkin's funeral.
In January 1923, Qu accepted the invitation from Chen Duxiu, leader of the Communist Party of China at that time, to come back from Russia. After returning, Qu was responsible for the propaganda work of Communist Party of China. In 1927 after the fall of Chen Duxiu, he became acting Chairman of the Chinese Politburo and the de facto leader of the party. He organized actions such as the Guangzhou Uprising of December 11, 1927. In April 1928, Qu went to Moscow once again and worked as a delegate of the Chinese Communist Party for two years. In 1930, after being dismissed as Chinese Communist Party representative in Russia, Qu returned to China only to be dismissed from the central leadership. This was all due to an intense argument about the means by which the revolution should be executed. Following his dismissal, Qu worked both as a writer and a translator in Shanghai, fought along with Mao Dun and Lu Xun and forged a profound friendship with leaders of left-wing cultural movement.
Read more about this topic: Qu Qiubai
Famous quotes containing the words communist, party and/or involvement:
“I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“He said, truly, that the reason why such greatly superior numbers quailed before him was, as one of his prisoners confessed, because they lacked a cause,—a kind of armor which he and his party never lacked. When the time came, few men were found willing to lay down their lives in defense of what they knew to be wrong; they did not like that this should be their last act in this world.”
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“What causes adolescents to rebel is not the assertion of authority but the arbitrary use of power, with little explanation of the rules and no involvement in decision-making. . . . Involving the adolescent in decisions doesn’t mean that you are giving up your authority. It means acknowledging that the teenager is growing up and has the right to participate in decisions that affect his or her life.”
—Laurence Steinberg (20th century)