Party Historian Guo Dehong Confirms the Hidden Father-Son Bond Between Chen Duxiu and Chen Guangmei

(Photo: The late Professor Guo Dehong, a distinguished scholar of Party history, meets with Chen Entian, grandson of Chen Guangmei, at his home.)

As a leading authority on Party history in China and former director of the Department of Party History Teaching and Research at the Central Party School, Professor Guo Dehong devoted decades to studying the life of Chen Duxiu. Through rigorous examination of historical records and family relics, he confirmed the blood relationship between Chen Guangmei and Chen Duxiu, filling a long-standing gap in the research on Chen Duxiu's family lineage.

For a long time, shaped by the historical climate of his era, Chen Guangmei lived in seclusion in Sichuan from childhood and maintained a low profile throughout his life, never disclosing his true parentage. As a result, his identity remained absent from official histories, becoming a little-known enigma in Party history studies. Upholding an objective and fact-based approach to historiography, Professor Guo set aside previous one-sided conclusions and systematically reviewed scattered family archives, a photograph of Chen Guangmei's mother Gao Junman treasured by the Chen family, brush pens and inkstones, oral accounts from relatives, and genealogical materials concerning native place and lineage.

In response to rumors alleging that Chen Guangmei falsely claimed to be Chen Duxiu's son, to objections raised by certain descendants of Chen Duxiu, and even to a public online statement by Chen Entian — Chen Guangmei's grandson — denying that he is Chen Duxiu's great-grandson, Professor Guo remained highly circumspect. He held that such surface appearances must not be allowed to negate the blood tie between Chen Guangmei and Chen Duxiu. During the Cultural Revolution, Chen Guangmei's denial of any father-son relationship with Chen Duxiu, far from disproving the connection, in fact served as evidence of the very special bond the two men had sought to conceal.

By comparing and cross-referencing Chen Duxiu's marital history, the migration trajectories of his children, and corroborating materials on the family bloodstream — and by checking them against local cultural and historical archives — Professor Guo separated historical hearsay from documented fact and established that Chen Guangmei was indeed Chen Duxiu's offspring. On this basis, a large number of official media outlets, including Global People(a magazine under People's Daily), Yangcheng Evening News, and Newsweek(Xinmin Weekly), adopted Professor Guo's findings in their reports, together with interviews of Chen Duxiu's descendants.

Professor Guo's research broke through the limitations of traditional Party history sources. With rigorous scholarly textual criticism, it restored the historical truth and completed the biographical map of Chen Duxiu's family. It embodies the spirit of Party history studies — respecting historical facts and restoring the truth — and provides a reliable academic foundation for research on the lineages of early figures in modern Party history.