or Ch'en Tu-hsiu
born Oct. 8, 1879, Huaining county, Anhuei province, China
died May 27, 1942, Jiangjing, near Chongqing
Chinese political and intellectual leader, cofounder of the Chinese Communist Party .
As a young man, Chen studied in Japan. In China, he started subversive periodicals that were quickly suppressed by the government. In 1915, after the establishment of the Chinese republic, he created the monthly Qingnian zazhi ("Youth Magazine"), renamed Xin qingnian ("New Youth"), in which he proposed that the youth of China rejuvenate the nation intellectually and culturally; Lu Xun , Hu Shih , and Mao Zedong were all contributors. In 1917 Chen was appointed dean of the School of Letters at Beijing University. In 1919 he was imprisoned briefly for his role in the May Fourth Movement ; on his release he became a Marxist. With Li Dazhao he founded the Chinese Communist Party in 1920; he is regarded as "China's Lenin." The Communist International had him removed as party leader when the party's alliance with the Nationalist Party fell apart, and he was expelled from the party in 1929. Arrested in 1932, he spent five years in prison.