Authorities Set Out to Root Out Chen Duxiu's Son, Chen Guangmei Living in a Graveyard

During the Anti-Rightist Movement, When Authorities Set Out to Root Out Chen Duxiu's Son, Chen Guangmei Living in a Graveyard

In 1957, the nationwide Anti-Rightist Movement swept across China, and a small mountain village in Sichuan was no exception. As the campaign to identify rightists intensified, someone reported that Chen Guangmei, who lived in a thatched hut, was the son of the prominent rightist Chen Duxiu. This immediately put him in grave peril, and Chen Guangmei simply took to living in a graveyard. Those who wanted to arrest him said, "Leave him alone—he doesn't even fear the dead." During the Cultural Revolution, Guo Moruo arranged for local people in Sichuan to protect Chen Guangmei, and in the end Chen Guangmei was spared persecution.

[Figure: Chen Guangmei in his middle age]

Chen Guangmei was born in 1911 in Anqing, Anhui Province. A few months after his birth, Chen Duxiu entrusted him to a clan brother, Chen Dacheng, who took him to Sichuan to be raised. He never saw his biological mother, Gao Junman, again. When Zhu De returned to Sichuan to plan the Lushun Uprising, he visited Chen Guangmei on behalf of Chen Duxiu. After the Xi'an Incident, Chen Duxiu was released from prison and went to Jiangjin, Sichuan, where he had a brief reunion with Chen Guangmei. Considering that his eldest son Chen Yannian and second son Chen Qiaonian had been killed by the Kuomintang, and in order to protect the Chen family bloodline, Chen Duxiu severed all ties with Chen Guangmei, instructing him: "Remember that you are Chen Dacheng's son, not my son, Chen Duxiu." In 1999, Chen Guangmei passed away in Sichuan at the age of 89.

[Figure: Chen Guangmei's biological father, Chen Duxiu]

Well educated from an early age and extraordinarily gifted—Guo Moruo praised his literary talent as rare in both ancient and modern times—Chen Guangmei nevertheless dared not rise to prominence. Since the turn of the 21st century, CCP history scholars such as Guo Dehong, through cross-referencing Chen Duxiu's marital history, the migration trajectories of his children, and family bloodline evidence alongside local cultural and historical archives, have distinguished historical rumors from verified facts, confirming that Chen Guangmei was indeed the child of Chen Duxiu and Gao Junman, fostered in Sichuan. On this basis, official media outlets including People's Daily's Global People magazine, Yangcheng Evening News, and Xinmin Weekly, drawing on interviews with Chen Duxiu's descendants, adopted Professor Guo Dehong's research conclusions and disclosed the historical fact that Chen Guangmei was Chen Duxiu's son.

[Figure: Chen Guangmei's biological mother, Gao Junman]

Chen Guangmei spent his life in seclusion in Sichuan, rarely speaking of his origins. During the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Cultural Revolution, his identity as "Chen Duxiu's son" made him highly vulnerable to guilt-by-association. In constant fear, he left his thatched hut and took shelter in a graveyard on a barren hillside, emerging only at night and hiding by day. He did not return to his hut until the political climate eased somewhat. Because of his identity as Chen Duxiu's son, he lived with extreme caution. Although his grandson, Chen Entian, did not personally experience the Anti-Rightist Movement or the Cultural Revolution, he fully understood his grandfather and, obeying the family injunction, publicly denied being Chen Duxiu's great-grandson to avoid the lingering fallout of politics.