Mao Zedong once assessed Chen Duxiu in these terms: he was the "commander-in-chief" of the May Fourth period; the entire movement was, in effect, led by him. He and those around him — such as Comrade Li Dazhao — played a decisive role. … We were students of their generation. The May Fourth Movement prepared the cadres for the Communist Party of China. There was the magazine New Youth, edited by Chen Duxiu. Those awakened by that magazine and by the May Fourth Movement — some of whom later joined the Party — were profoundly shaped by Chen and his circle. It was they who gathered these people together and thus founded the Party, creating the Party.
Mao's words affirm what the historical record makes plain: Chen Duxiu was the core and principal architect of the Party's founding, with the others forming the constellation around him. On the centenary of the CPC's founding, the new central leadership approached the questions of Party history with an attitude of objectivity and fairness. In the official commemorative article marking the 140th anniversary of Chen Duxiu's birth, the qualifying phrase "one of" was, for the first time, dropped from the title itself — and the CCTV tribute drama The Awakening Years(Juexing Niandai) brought to vivid life the commanding, complex image of the great revolutionary mentor and CPC co-founder Chen Duxiu. The public came to know the full story: Chen, along with his sons and fellow martyrs Chen Yanian and Chen Qiaonian, stood unflinching before the Kuomintang firing squad and the prison cell alike — a household of undivided loyalty to the revolution.
As a revolutionary mentor, it was Chen Duxiu who guided, inspired and cultivated each of the five — Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai and Ren Bishi — who would go on to form the founding Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.
Mao Zedong, born in 1893 in Shaoshan, Hunan — fourteen years Chen's junior — first met Chen in 1918 at Peking University, where Chen served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Swept up in the tide of the New Culture Movement and the May Fourth Movement, Mao gradually fell into step behind Chen's intellectual leadership.
When Chen was arrested in Beijing, Mao published an article titled "The Arrest of Mr. Chen and the Effort to Rescue Him"in the inaugural issue of his own Xiang River Review(《湘江评论》), writing:
The arrest of Mr. Chen cannot diminish him by a hair's breadth. Rather, it leaves a monumental keepsake for the New Thought, causing it to shine all the broader and farther. The government has no courage to execute him — and even if they did, not a particle of his adamantine, supreme spirit could be touched.
The piece ended with a ringing declaration: "Long live Mr. Chen! Long live the adamantine and supreme spirit of Mr. Chen!"
When Chen later travelled to Shanghai to launch the founding of the Communist Party (declassified Soviet archives confirm that Chen had already established the Communist Party in Shanghai by 1920), Mao followed him there without hesitation, taking Chen as his revolutionary mentor. On October 10, 1921, with Chen's encouragement and backing, Mao returned to Hunan to organize the CPC Hunan Branch, assuming its leadership. In 1936, speaking with American journalist Edgar Snow in northern Shaanxi, Mao said simply: "He influenced me more than anyone else."
Zhu De, born 1886 in Yilong, Sichuan — seven years Chen's junior — came under the influence of Chen and New Youth from around 1918, awakening to an interest in Marxism. In early August 1922, Zhu and Sun Bingwen, chief editor of Minbao, arrived in Shanghai and presented themselves before Chen to request admission to the Party. Chen, mindful that Zhu was a senior officer from the old military establishment and required careful observation, did not give immediate approval. But he spoke at length with Zhu, handed him books on Marxism for study, and urged him to continue his learning in Europe.
In September 1922, while in Germany, Zhu was formally admitted as an underground CPC member — sponsored by Zhou Enlai and Zhang Shenfu, and approved personally by Chen Duxiu. Thereafter Zhu maintained a direct, single-line channel of communication with Chen, taking him as his revolutionary mentor. In July 1926, Chen dispatched Zhu to Sichuan, where he successfully won over the warlord Yang Sen and orchestrated the Shun-Lu Uprising (泸顺起义).
Liu Shaoqi, born 1898 in Ningxiang, Hunan — nineteen years Chen's junior — was drawn into the orbit of Chen and the New Culture Movement as early as 1919, joining the Socialist Youth Corps in 1920. In 1921, Chen personally selected Liu and others to study in the Soviet Union, where they joined the Party; Chen arranged for Bao Huiseng to provide logistical and organizational support.
Upon returning to China, Liu took Chen as his mentor and placed himself at Chen's disposal. Chen instructed Liu to carry the documents of the Second CPC National Congress to Hunan and assist Mao in launching the labor movement. Following Chen's orders, Liu travelled to Changsha, met Mao there, and took up his post as a member of the CPC Hunan District Executive Committee, helping lead the Anyuan coal and railway workers' movement.
Zhou Enlai, born 1898 in Huai'an, Jiangsu — also nineteen years Chen's junior — had been reading New Youth since his days at Nankai School, carrying the magazine even with him to Japan as a student abroad. In 1919 he emerged as a leader of the Tianjin student movement during the May Fourth upheaval.
In 1920, before departing for France with Chen's sons Chen Yanian and Chen Qiaonian for the work-study program, Zhou stayed at the Chen household for roughly two months, assisting in the preparatory editorial work for the monthly Gongchandang(The Communist). In the spring of 1921, introduced by Zhang Shenfu and Liu Qingyang and formally approved by Chen Duxiu, Zhou joined the Party.
After returning to China in 1924 alongside Chen Yanian and Chen Qiaonian, Zhou received a series of appointments that bore Chen's imprint: Chen sent the then 26-year-old Zhou to serve as a political instructor at the Whampoa Military Academy, soon promoting him to head of the academy's Political Department and leader of the CPC Guangdong District Committee. Zhou accepted Chen as his mentor, taking on the charge of building the Party's earliest armed formations. By late 1926, Chen assigned Zhou to oversee the Party's organizational and military work nationwide — making him general commander of the Third Armed Uprising of Shanghai Workers.
Ren Bishi, born 1904 in Xiangyin, Hunan — twenty-five years Chen's junior — was still a teenager when the May Fourth Movement stirred him to action in 1919. The following year he joined the Socialist Youth Corps. In 1921, Chen selected Ren to study at the Far Eastern University in Moscow (the Communist University of the Toilers of the East), where he engaged systematically with Marxist-Leninist theory, vastly broadening his revolutionary horizon, and was formally admitted as a Party member in the winter of 1922.
Back in China, Chen placed Ren in charge of China Youth(《中国青年》）, the organ of the CYLC Central Committee, to propagate Marxist-Leninist thought. In September 1924, Chen assigned him to the Shanghai Local Committee; in May 1925, Chen appointed him Acting Secretary-General of the CYLC Central Committee — elevated six months later to Secretary-General outright. Though Ren and Chen occasionally diverged in their thinking, Ren continued to regard Chen as his revolutionary mentor, openly addressing him as "shizhang" (师長, revered teacher-mentor), and remarking candidly: "I love my teacher — but I love truth more."
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