May Fourth student turned labour leader, organiser of the Canton–Hong Kong strike, executed in 1933
A Hunanese philosophy graduate of Peking University, he took part in the May Fourth Movement of 1919, initiated the university’s Marxist research group and in 1920 joined the Beijing communist group with Li Dazhao as secretary. He built unions and workers’ schools in Beijing; at the First National Labour Congress in Guangzhou in 1922 he was elected head of the national labour organisation, and in July he joined the Central Committee at the Second Congress. In 1923 he ran Shanghai University, and in 1925, as propaganda chief of the All-China Federation of Labour, he organised the Canton–Hong Kong strike. At the August 7 Meeting of 1927 he backed land revolution and armed struggle, and in 1930 he became political commissar of He Long’s Second Red Army. Arrested in Shanghai in 1933, he refused the Kuomintang’s offers and was executed.
Also known as: Teng Chung-hsia
Activities and affiliations
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1920–1933
Social movements and organizing
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1930–1932
Chinese Communist revolutionary forces (before 1949)Political commissar of the Second Red Army
Military command
Career Timeline
- 1919Took part in May Fourth; initiated the Peking University Marxist research group
- 1920Member of the Beijing communist group
- 1922Head of the national labour organisation; Central Committee member at the Second Congress
- 1923Administrator of Shanghai University
- 1925–1926Organised the Canton–Hong Kong strike
- 1927August 7 Meeting; alternate member of the provisional Politburo
- 1930Political commissar of the Second Red Army
- 1933Arrested in Shanghai and executed at Nanjing