Editor’s Introduction

Chen Duxiu (1879-1942) is a surpassing presence in modern Chinese thought and politics. At the start of the century, he helped prepare the ground for the Revolution of 1911 that overthrew the Manchus and brought in the Republic. Between 1915 and 1919, he led the remarkable New Culture (or May Fourth) Movement that electrified Chinese student youth and laid the intellectual foundations for transforming China’s politics and society. In 1921 he founded the Chinese Communist Party; he was elected General Secretary at its first five congresses. In 1929 he became a Trotskyist and in 1931 he helped found the Chinese Left Opposition, which he then led. In 1932 he was arrested (for the fifth and last time in his life ¹ ) and sent to prison on charges of seeking to overthrow the government and replace it with a proletarian dictatorship. Between his release from prison in 1937 and his death on May 27, 1942, he wrote the letters and articles collected in this volume.