Backdrop of the Party's Birth

Prior to the Spring Festival in 1920, a mule-drawn carriage quietly slid out of Chaoyangmen in Beijing, jolted off down the bumpy road, and headed straight toward Tianjin. Two men were in the carriage. One of them, who strongly resembled a businessman going out for debt collection, was sitting astride the shaft, his face hidden underneath his thick mustache, with an account book in his pocket. The other, who looked like an impoverished teacher, was sitting inside the wagon, with a fur hat anchored to his head, wearing a blotchy, greasy cotton vest.

The man with a thick mustache was the director of the Peking University Library, Li Dazhao, and his companion wearing the cotton vest was none other than the chief editor of the New Youth magazine, Chen Duxiu, who was, at that time,wanted by the military police of the Beijing government. Later,it was revealed that to escape the relentless pursuit, Li Dazhao disguised Chen Duxiu and escorted him out of Beijing. On their way, the two men promised to each other that they should work in Beijing and Shanghai, respectively, to establish a new party.

Why did these two great scholars intend to found a new party?

To answer this question, I have to talk about the May Fourth Movement which people would instantly associate with patriotism. So, what did our nation actually look like in that period of time?

During World War I, China joined the Entente and sent to European battle sites a large contingent of laborers who were tasked with onerous manual work. In November 1918 when the war came to a close, China was among the victorious nations for the first time in its modern history. When the news reached Beijing, the first thing the excited people did was demolishing the Ketteler Memorial erected at Dongdan North Street. This memorial gate, marking the dawn of the 20th century in China,was built by the Qing Empire to specifically offer condolence over the death of the German ambassador Clemens von Ketteler, who had been killed during the Yihetuan Movement when the Eight-Nation Alliance occupied Beijing. Inscribed on the Ketteler Memorial was a written apology by the Guangxu Emperor. The memorial gate was later moved to Zhongshan Park, and four characters were carved onto it, which read, “The Triumph of Right”.

Credit for these four characters should be given to the American president Woodrow Wilson who presided over the Paris Peace Conference, where the world's powers discussed and solved various issues after WWI. However, could right really triumph over might?

Although the Paris Peace Conference did decide that Germany must return all the ancient astronomical instruments that German troops had taken from Beijing, the Chinese delegation came back with humiliating news: countries such as China did not have a say on most matters at the conference and everything was decided at closed-door meetings participated by only a handful of great powers such as Britain, France, and the US. At this point, Chinese people became disillusioned as they realized the conference would not reward China for its contribution to the Allied victory, but they still had a slight hope to recover Shandong from the hands of Germany. This hope was soon shattered. The Japanese delegation refused to return Qingdao and the Jiaoji Railway on the grounds of the treaty entered between the Beiyang government and the Japanese government.

This resulted in an upsurge of Chinese nationalist sentiment. Students in Shanghai went on strike and drafted a manifesto condemning the conference's decision: “Woodrow Wilson said that the peace treaty would ensure that countries like China would be able to develop their culture and economy without interference from other countries. He also said that any covenants or agreements signed secretly or under threat would not be recognized. We thought we were at the dawn of a new era, but the dark night was persisting in China. Even the cradle of the nation (Shandong) was stolen.”

In regard to the outcry of the Chinese people, Paul Samuel Reinsch, then US ambassador to China, said, “Probably nowhere else in the world had expectations of America's leadership at Paris been raised so high as in China... The more intense was their disappointment and disillusionment due to the decisions of the old men that controlled the Peace Conference. It sickened and disheartened me to think how the Chinese people would receive this blow...”

However, Chinese people did not wallow in despair. A great patriotic campaign broke out on May 4, 1919, spurring an outpouring of nationalism and patriotism fanned by national humiliations of being repeatedly bullied by foreign imperialist powers since the beginning of the modern era.

Students, workers, and citizens took to the streets, shouting out such slogans as “Fight for the sovereignty and get rid of the national traitors” and denouncing the Treaty of Versailles. Most Chinese people began to realize the fate of the country and the fate of every Chinese people were closely intertwined. On May 16, 1919, in an article entitled “A Letter to Fellow Countrymen”on The Republic of China Daily, students of Guomin University proclaimed: “This is a decisive moment for our country and for us.If we want to take control of our own destiny, we must stand up and save the nation.” Some newspapers and magazines published letters from intellectuals declaring they would rather take their own lives than endure the pain of witnessing China's humiliation.

Many intellectuals wielded the power of words and enunciated their concerns for the fate of the country in their own ways. For example, Li Dazhao trumpeted the ambition of emancipating China from its feudal past and making the country anew; Lu Xun mercilessly pointed out the ailments of feudalism,implying that China's feudal system was cannibalistic; Guo Moruo confessed his passionate love for the country; Yu Dafu lamented the decline of China in hope of jarring fellow countrymen awake to the urgency of national revival.

The common goal of these patriotic intellectuals was to make the Chinese people realize the precarious position China was in and the urgency of taking action to revive the country.

Revival of the nation became the keynote of the modern era of China, fueling Chinese nationalism and cultural movements across the country. The English name of the magazine Xin Chao founded by students of Peking University during the May Fourth Movement was Renaissance.

These patriotic feelings and the zeal for national revival culminated in the founding of the CPC. A Wuhan-based student activist Yun Daiying said in one of his letters, “We cannot rely on others to save our country. We must take matters into our own hand. ” Mao Zedong, a student leader in Hunan, shouted out, “China is our country. If we do not speak out for our own country, who would? If we do not fight for the interests of our own country, who would?”

The two student leaders later held prominent positions in the CPC.